Transcriber's Note:
 
 
 This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction June 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
 
 
 
 
 THE VALLEY
 

 By Richard Stockham
 

 Illustrated by Ed Emsh
 
 
  If you can't find it countless millions of miles in space, come back to Earth. You might find it just on the other side of the fence—where the grass is always greener.
 

 
 The Ship dove into Earth's sea of atmosphere like a great, silver fish.
 
 Inside the ship, a man and woman stood looking down at the expanse of land that curved away to a growing horizon. They saw the yellow ground cracked like a dried skin; and the polished stone of the mountains and the seas that were shrunken away in the dust. And they saw how the city circled the sea, as a circle of men surround a water hole in a desert under a blazing sun.
 
 The ship's radio cried out. "You've made it! Thank God! You've made it!"
 
 Another voice, shaking, said, "President—Davis is—overwhelmed. He can't go on. On his behalf and on behalf of all the people—with our hope that was almost dead, we greet you." A pause. "Please come in!"
 
 The voice was silent. The air screamed against the hull of the ship.
 
 "I can't tell them," said the man.
 
 "Please come in!" said the radio. "Do you hear me?"
 
 The woman looked up at the man. "You've got to Michael!"
 
 "Two thousand years. From one end of the galaxy to the other. Not one grain of dust we can live on. Just Earth. And it's burned to a cinder."
 
 A note of hysteria stabbed into the radio voice. "Are you all right? Stand by! We're sending a rescue ship."
 
 "They've got a right to know what we've found," said the woman. "They sent us out. They've waited so long—."
 
 He stared into space. "It's hopeless. If we'd found another planet they could live on, they'd do the same as they've done here."
 
 He touched the tiny golden locket that hung around his neck. "Right now, I could press this and scratch myself and the whole farce would be over."
 
 "No. A thousand of us died. You've got to think of them."
 
 "We'll go back out into space," he said. "It's clean out there. I'm tired. Two thousand years of reincarnation."
 
 She spoke softly. "We've been together for a long time. I've loved you. I've asked very little. But I need to stay on Earth. Please, Michael."
 
 He looked at her for a moment. Then he flipped a switch. "Milky Way to Earth. Never mind the rescue ship. We're all right. We're coming in."
 
 
 
 The great, white ship settled to Earth that was like a plain after flood waters have drained away.
 
 The man and woman came out into the blazing sunlight.
 
 A shout, like the crashing of a thousand surfs, rose and broke over them. The man and woman descended the gang-plank toward the officials gathered on the platform. They glanced around at the massed field of white faces beneath them; saw those same faces that had been turned toward them two thousand years past; remembered the cheers and the cries that had crashed around them then, as they and the thousand had stood before the towering spires of the ships, before the takeoff.
 
 And, as then, there were no children among the milling, grasping throng. Only the same clutching hands and voices and arms, asking for an answer, a salvation, a happy end.
 
 Now the officials gathered around the man and the woman, and spoke to them in voices of reverence.
 
 A microphone was thrust into Michael's hand with the whispered admonition to tell the people of the great new life waiting for them, open and green and moist, on a virgin planet.
 
 The cries of the people were slipping away and a stillness growing like an ocean calm and, within it, the sound of the pumps, throbbing, sucking the water from the seas.
 
 And then Michael's voice, "The thousand who left with us are dead. For some time we've known the other planets in our solar system were uninhabitable. Now we've been from one end of the galaxy to the other. And this is what we've found.... We were given Earth. There's no place else for us. The rest of the planets in the galaxy were given to others. There's no place else for them. We've all had a chance to make the best of Earth. Instead we've made the worst of it. So we're here to stay—and die." He handed the microphone back.
 
 The silence did not change.
 
 The President grasped Michael's arm. "What're you saying?"
 
 A buzzing rose up from the people like that of a swarm of frightened bees. The sea of white faces swayed and their voices began to cry. The din and motion held, long and drawn out, with a wail now and a fluttering beneath it.
 
 Michael and the woman stood above them in the center of the pale, hovering faces of the officials.
 
 "Good God," said the President. "You've got to tell them what you said isn't true!"
 
 "We've been searching two thousand years for a truth," said Michael.
"A thousand of us have died finding it. I've told it. That's the way it's got to be."
 
 The President swayed, took the microphone in his hands.
 
 "There's been some mistake!" he cried. "Go back to the pumps and the distilleries! Go back to the water vats and the gardens and the flocks! Go back! Work and wait! We'll get the full truth to you. Everything's going to be all right !"
 
 Obediently the mass of faces separated, as though they were being spun away on a whirling disk. Michael and the woman were swallowed up, like pebbles inside a closing hand, and carried away from the great, white ship.
 
 
 
 They ushered the man and woman into the beamed and paneled council chambers and sat them in thick chairs before the wall of polished wood desks across which stared the line of faces, silent and waiting. And on a far wall, facing them all, hung a silver screen, fifty feet square.
 
 The President stood. "Members of the council." He paused. "As you heard, they report—complete failure." He turned to Michael. "And now, the proof."
 
 Michael stood beside the motion picture projector, close to his chair. The lights dimmed. There was only the sound of the pumps throbbing in the darkness close and far away, above and beneath and all around. Suddenly on the screen appeared an endless depth of blackness filled with a mass of glowing white, which extended into the room around the watching people, seeming to touch them and then spreading, like an ocean, farther away and out and out into an endless distance.
 
 Now streaks of yellow fire shot into the picture, like a swarm of lightning bugs, the thin sharp nosed shadows of space ships, hurtling, like comets, toward the clustered star smear. And then silent thoughts flashed from the screen into the minds of the spectators; of time passing in months, years and centuries, passing and passing until they themselves seemed to be rushing and rushing into the blackness toward blinding balls of white light, the size of moons.
 
 The dark shapes of smaller spheres circling the blinding ones moved forward into the picture; red, blue, green, yellow, purple and many mixtures of all these, and then one planet filled the screen, seeming to be inflated, like a balloon, into a shining red ball. There was a razor edge of horizon then and pink sky and an expanse of crimson. Flat, yellow creatures lay all around, expanding and contracting. A roaring rose and fell like the roaring of a million winds. Then fear flowed out of the picture into the minds of the watchers so that they gasped and cringed, and a silent voice told them that the atmosphere of this planet would disintegrate a human being.
 
 Now the red ball seemed to pull away from them into the blackness and the blinding balls of light, and all around could be seen the streaks of rocket flame shooting away in all directions.
 
 Suddenly a flash cut the blackness, like the flare of a match, and died, and the watchers caught from the screen the awareness of the death of a ship.
 
 They were also aware of the rushing of time through centuries and they saw the streaking rocket flames and planets rushing at them; saw creatures in squares and circles, in threads wriggling, in lumps and blobs, rolling jumping and crawling; saw them in cloud forms whisking about, changing their shapes, and in flowing wavelets of water. They saw creatures hopping about on one leg and others crawling at incredible speeds on a thousand; saw some with all the numbers of legs and arms in between; and were aware of creatures that were there but invisible.
 
 And those watching the screen on which time and distance were a compressed and distilled kaleidoscope, saw planet after planet and thousands at a time; heard strange noises; rasping and roaring, clinks and whistles, screams and crying, sighing and moaning. And they were aware through all this of atmosphere and ground inimical to man, some that would evaporate at the touch of a human body, or would burst into flame, or swallow, or turn from liquid to solid or solid to liquid. They saw and heard chemical analyses, were aware of this ocean of blackness and clouds of white through which man might move, and must ever move, because he could live only upon this floating dust speck that was Earth.
 
 The picture faded in, close to one of the long, needle nosed crafts, showing inside, a man and a woman. Time was telescoped again while the man cut a tiny piece of scar tissue from his arm and that of the woman, put them in bottles and set them into compartments where solutions dripped rhythmically into the bottles, the temperature was held at that of the human body, and synthetic sunlight focused upon them from many pencil like tubes.
 
 The watchers in the council chamber saw the bits of tissue swell into human embryos in a few seconds, and grow arms and legs and faces and extend themselves into babies. Saw them taken from the bottles and cared for, and become replicas of the man and woman controlling the ship, who, all this time were aging, until life went out of their bodies. Then the ones who had been the scar tissue disintegrated them in the coffin-like tubes and let their dust be sucked out into space—all this through millions of miles and a hundred years, compressed for the watchers into sixty seconds and a few feet of space.
 
 Instantly there was black space on the screen again, with the fingers of flame pointing out behind the dark bodies of the ships.
 
 And then the spectators saw one ship shudder and swerve into a blazing, bluish white star, like a gnat flying into a white hot poker; saw another drop away and away, out and out into the blackness past the swirling white rim of the galaxy, and sink into a dark nothingness.
 
 Great balls of rock showered like hail onto other ships, smashing them into grotesque tin cans. The stream of fire at the tail of another ship suddenly died and the ship floated into an orbit around a great, yellow planet, ten times the size of Jupiter, then was sucked into it. Another burst like a bomb, flinging a man and woman out into the darkness, where they hung suspended, frozen into statues, like bodies drowned in the depths of an Arctic sea.
 
 At this instant from the watching council, there were screams of horror and voices crying out, "Shut it off! Shut it off!" There was a moving about in the darkness. Murmurs and harsh cries of disapproval grew in volume.
 
 Another ship in the picture was split down the side by a meteor and the bodies inside were impaled on jagged blades of steel, the contorted, bloody faces lighted by bursts of flame. And the screams and cries of the spectators rose higher, "Shut it off.... Oh Lord...."
 
 Lights flashed through the room and the picture died.
 
 
 
 Michael and Mary, both staring, saw, along the line of desks, the agonized faces, some staring like white stones, others hidden in clutching fingers, as though they had been confronted by a Medusa. There was the sound of heavy breathing that mixed with the throbbing of the pumps. The President held tightly to the edges of his desk to quiet his trembling.
 
 "There—there've been changes," he said, "since you've been out in space. There isn't a person on Earth who's seen a violent death for hundreds of years."
 
 Michael faced him, frowning. "I don't follow you."
 
 "Dying violently happened so seldom on Earth that, after a long time, the sight of it began to drive some people mad. And then one day a man was struck by one of the ground cars and everyone who saw it went insane. Since then we've eliminated accidents, even the idea. Now, no one is aware that death by violence is even a possibility."
 
 "I'm sorry," said Michael, "we've been so close to violent death for so long.... What you've seen is part of the proof you asked for."
 
 "What you showed us was a picture," said the President. "If it had been real, we'd all be insane by now. If it were shown to the people there'd be mass hysteria."
 
 "But even if we'd found another habitable planet, getting to it would involve just what we've shown you. Maybe only a tenth of the people who left Earth, or a hundredth, would ever reach a destination out in space."
 
 "We couldn't tolerate such a possibility," said the President gravely. "We'd have to find a way around it."
 
 The pumps throbbed like giant hearts all through the stillness in the council chambers. The faces along the line of desks were smoothing out; the terror in them was fading away.
 
 "And yet the Earth is almost dead," said Michael quietly, "and you can't bring it back to life."
 
 "The sins of our past, Mr. Nelson," said the President. "The Atomic wars five thousand years ago. And the greed. It was too late a long time ago. That, of course, is why the expedition was sent out. And now you've come back to us with this terrible news." He looked around, slowly, then back to Michael. "Can you give us any hope at all?"
 
 "None."
 
 "Another expedition? To Andromeda perhaps? With you the leader?"
 
 Michael shook his head. "We're finished with expeditions, Mr. President."
 
 There were mutterings in the council, and hastily whispered consultations. Now they were watching the man and woman again.
 
 "We feel," said the President, "it would be dangerous to allow you to go out among the people. They've been informed that your statement wasn't entirely true. This was necessary, to avoid a panic. The people simply must not know the whole truth." He paused. "Now we ask you to keep in mind that whatever we decide about the two of you will be for the good of the people."
 
 Michael and Mary were silent.
 
 "You'll wait outside the council chambers," the President went on,
"until we have reached our decision."
 
 As the man and woman were led away, the pumps beat in the stillness, and at the edge of the shrinking seas the salt thick waters were being pulled into the distilleries, and from them into the tier upon tier of artificial gardens that sat like giant bee hives all around the shoreline; and the mounds of salt glistening in the sunlight behind the gardens were growing into mountains.
 
 
 
 In their rooms, Michael and Mary were talking through the hours, and waiting. All around them were fragile, form-fitting chairs and translucent walls and a ceiling that, holding the light of the sun when they had first seen it, was now filled with moonlight.
 
 Standing at a circular window, ten feet in diameter, Michael saw, far below, the lights of the city extending into the darkness along the shoreline of the sea.
 
 "We should have delivered our message by radio," he said, "and gone back into space."
 
 "You could probably still go," she said quietly.
 
 He came and stood beside her. "I couldn't stand being out in space, or anywhere, without you."
 
 She looked up at him. "We could go out into the wilderness, Michael, outside the force walls. We could go far away."
 
 He turned from her. "It's all dead. What would be the use?"
 
 "I came from the Earth," she said quietly. "And I've got to go back to it. Space is so cold and frightening. Steel walls and blackness and the rockets and the little pinpoints of light. It's a prison."
 
 "But to die out there in the desert, in that dust." Then he paused and looked away from her. "We're crazy—talking as though we had a choice."
 
 "Maybe they'll have to give us a choice."
 
 "What're you talking about?"
 
 "They went into hysterics at the sight of those bodies in the picture. Those young bodies that didn't die of old age."
 
 He waited.
 
 "They can't stand the sight of people dying violently."
 
 Her hand went to her throat and touched the tiny locket.
 
 "These lockets were given to us so we'd have a choice between suffering or quick painless death.... We still have a choice."
 
 He touched the locket at his own throat and was very still for a long moment. "So we threaten to kill ourselves, before their eyes. What would it do to them?"
 
 He was still for a long time. "Sometimes, Mary, I think I don't know you at all." A pause. "And so now you and I are back where we started. Which'll it be, space or Earth?"
 
 "Michael." Her voice trembled. "I—I don't know how to say this."
 
 He waited, frowning, watching her intently.
 
 "I'm—going to have a child."
 
 His face went blank.
 
 Then he stepped forward and took her by the shoulders. He saw the softness there in her face; saw her eyes bright as though the sun were shining in them; saw a flush in her cheeks, as though she had been running. And suddenly his throat was full.
 
 "No," he said thickly. "I can't believe it."
 
 "It's true."
 
 He held her for a long time, then he turned his eyes aside.
 
 "Yes, I can see it is."
 
 "I—I can't put into words why I let it happen, Michael."
 
 He shook his head. "I don't know—what to—to say. It's so incredible."
 
 "Maybe—I got so—tired—just seeing the two of us over and over again and the culturing of the scar tissue, for twenty centuries. Maybe that was it. It was just—something I felt I had to do. Some— real life again. Something new. I felt a need to produce something out of myself. It all started way out in space, while we were getting close to the solar system. I began to wonder if we'd ever get out of the ship alive or if we'd ever see a sunset again or a dawn or the night or morning like we'd seen on Earth—so—so long ago. And then I had to let it happen. It was a vague and strange thing. There was something forcing me. But at the same time I wanted it, too. I seemed to be willing it, seemed to be feeling it was a necessary thing." She paused, frowning. "I didn't stop to think—it would be like this."
 
 "Such a thing," he said, smiling grimly, "hasn't happened on Earth for three thousand years. I can remember in school, reading in the history books, how the whole Earth was overcrowded and how the food and water had to be rationed and then how the laws were passed forbidding birth and after that how the people died and there weren't any more babies born, until at last there was plenty of what the Earth had to give, for everyone. And then the news was broken to everyone about the culturing of the scar tissue, and there were a few dissenters but they were soon conditioned out of their dissension and the population was stabilized." He paused. "After all this past history, I don't think the council could endure what you've done."
 
 "No," she said quietly. "I don't think they could."
 
 "And so this will be just for us ." He took her in his arms. "If I remember rightly, this is a traditional action." A pause. "Now I'll go with you out onto the Earth—if we can swing it. When we get outside the city, or if we do—Well, we'll see."
 
 They were very still together and then he turned and stood by the window and looked down upon the city and she came and stood beside him.
 
 
 
 They both saw it at the same time. And they watched, without speaking, both knowing what was in the other's mind and heart. They watched the giant four dimensional screens all through the city. A green, lush planet showed bright and clear on them and there were ships standing among the trees and men walking through the grass, that moved gently like the swells on a calm ocean, while into their minds came the thoughts projected from the screen:
 
 "This will be your new home. It was found and then lost. But another expedition will be sent out to find it again. Be of good hope. Everything will be all right."
 
 Michael turned from the window. "So there's our evidence. Two thousand years. All the others killed getting it. And with a simple twist, it becomes a lie."
 
 Mary sat down and buried her face in her hands.
 
 "What a terrible failure there's been here," said Michael. "The neglect and destruction of a whole planet. It's like a family letting their home decay all around them, and living in smaller and smaller rooms of it, until at last the rooms are all gone, and since they can't find another home, they all die in the ruins of the last room."
 
 "I can't face dying," Mary said quietly, "squeezed in with all these people, in this tomb they've made around the seas. I want to have the open sky and the quiet away from those awful pounding pumps when I die. I want the spread of the Earth all around and the clean air. I want to be a real part of the Earth again."
 
 Michael barely nodded in agreement. He was standing very still now.
 
 And then there was the sound of the door opening.
 
 They both rose, like mourners at a funeral, and went into the council chambers.
 
 
 
 Again they sat in the thick chairs before the wall of desks with the faces of the council looking across it like defenders.
 
 The pumps were beating, beating all through the room and the quiet.
 
 The President was standing. He faced Michael and Mary, and seemed to set himself as though to deliver a blow, or to receive one.
 
 "Michael and Mary," he said, his voice struggling against a tightness,
"we've considered a long time concerning what is to be done with you and the report you brought back to us from the galaxy." He took another swallow of water. "To protect the sanity of the people, we've changed your report. We've also decided that the people must be protected from the possibility of your spreading the truth, as you did at the landing field. So, for the good of the people, you'll be isolated. All comforts will be given you. After all, in a sense, you are heroes and martyrs. Your scar tissue will be cultured as it has been in the past, and you will stay in solitary confinement until the time when, perhaps, we can migrate to another planet. We feel that hope must not be destroyed. And so another expedition is being sent out. It may be that, in time, on another planet, you'll be able to take your place in our society."
 
 He paused. "Is there anything you wish to say?"
 
 "Yes, there is."
 
 "Proceed."
 
 Michael stared straight at the President. After a long moment, he raised his hand to the tiny locket at his throat.
 
 "Perhaps you remember," he said, "the lockets given to every member of the expedition the night before we left. I still have mine." He raised it. "So does my wife. They were designed to kill the wearer instantly and painlessly if he were ever faced with pain or a terror he couldn't endure."
 
 The President was standing again. A stir ran along the barricade of desks.
 
 "We can't endure the city," went on Michael, "or its life and the ways of the people." He glanced along the line of staring faces.
 
 "If what I think you're about to say is true," said the President in a shaking voice, "it would have been better if you'd never been born."
 
 "Let's face facts, Mr. President. We were born and haven't died—yet." A pause. "And we can kill ourselves right here before your eyes. It'd be painless to us. We'd be unconscious. But there would be horrible convulsions and grimaces. Our bodies would be twisted and torn. They'd thresh about. The deaths you saw in the picture happened a long time ago, in outer space. You all went into hysterics at the sight of them. Our deaths now would be close and terrible to see."
 
 The President staggered as though about to faint. There was a stirring and muttering and a jumping up along the desks. Voices cried out, in anger and fear. Arms waved and fists pounded. Hands clasped and unclasped and clawed at collars, and there was a pell mell rushing around the President. They yelled at each other and clasped each other by the shoulders, turned away and back again, and then suddenly became very still.
 
 Now they began to step down from the raised line of desks, the President leading them, and came close to the man and woman, gathering around them in a wide half circle.
 
 Michael and Mary were holding the lockets close to their throats. The half circle of people, with the President at its center was moving closer and closer. They were sweaty faces and red ones and dry white ones and hands were raised to seize them.
 
 Michael put his arm around Mary's waist. He felt the trembling in her body and the waiting for death.
 
 "Stop!" he said quietly.
 
 They halted, in slight confusion, barely drawing back.
 
 "If you want to see us die—just come a step closer.... And remember what'll happen to you."
 
 The faces began turning to each other and there was an undertone of muttering and whispering. "A ghastly thing.... Instant.... Nothing to do.... Space's broken their minds.... They'll do it.... Eyes're mad.... What can we do?... What?..." The sweaty faces, the cold white ones, the flushed hot ones: all began to turn to the President, who was staring at the two before him like a man watching himself die in a mirror.
 
 "I command you," he suddenly said, in a choked voice, "to—to give me those—lockets! It's your—duty!"
 
 "We've only one duty, Mr. President," said Michael sharply. "To ourselves."
 
 "You're sick. Give yourselves over to us. We'll help you."
 
 "We've made our choice. We want an answer. Quickly! Now!"
 
 The President's body sagged. "What—what is it you want?"
 
 Michael threw the words. "To go beyond the force fields of the city. To go far out onto the Earth and live as long as we can, and then to die a natural death."
 
 The half circle of faces turned to each other and muttered and whispered again. "In the name of God.... Let them go.... Contaminate us.... Like animals.... Get them out of here.... Let them be finished.... Best for us all.... And them...."
 
 There was a turning to the President again and hands thrusting him forward to within one step of Michael and Mary, who were standing there close together, as though attached.
 
 Haltingly he said, "Go. Please go. Out onto the Earth—to die. You will die. The Earth is dead out there. You'll never see the city or your people again."
 
 "We want a ground car," said Michael. "And supplies."
 
 "A ground car," repeated the President. "And—supplies.... Yes."
 
 "You can give us an escort, if you want to, out beyond the first range of mountains."
 
 "There will be no escort," said the President firmly. "No one has been allowed to go out upon the Earth or to fly above it for many hundreds of years. We know it's there. That's enough. We couldn't bear the sight of it." He took a step back. "And we can't bear the sight of you any longer. Go now. Quickly!"
 
 Michael and Mary did not let go of the lockets as they watched the half circle of faces move backward, staring, as though at corpses that should sink to the floor.
 
 
 
 It was night. The city had been lost beyond the dead mounds of Earth that rolled away behind them, like a thousand ancient tombs. The ground car sat still on a crumbling road.
 
 Looking up through the car's driving blister, they saw the stars sunk into the blue black ocean of space; saw the path of the Milky Way along which they had rushed, while they had been searching frantically for the place of salvation.
 
 "If any one of the other couples had made it back," said Mary, "do you think they'd be with us?"
 
 "I think they'd either be with us," he said, "or out in space again—or in prison."
 
 She stared ahead along the beam of headlight that stabbed out into the night over the decaying road.
 
 "How sorry are you," she said quietly, "coming with me?"
 
 "All I know is, if I were out in space for long without you, I'd kill myself."
 
 "Are we going to die out here, Michael?" she said, gesturing toward the wall of night that stood at the end of the headlight, "with the land?"
 
 He turned from her, frowning, and drove the ground car forward, watching the headlights push back the darkness.
 
 They followed the crumbling highway all night until light crept across the bald and cracked hills. The morning sun looked down upon the desolation ten feet above the horizon when the car stopped. They sat for a long time then, looking out upon the Earth's parched and inflamed skin. In the distance a wall of mountains rose like a great pile of bleached bones. Close ahead the rolling plains were motionless waves of dead Earth with a slight breeze stirring up little swirls of dust.
 
 "I'm getting out," she said.
 
 "I haven't the slightest idea how much farther to go, or why," said Michael shrugging. "It's all the same. Dirt and hills and mountains and sun and dust. It's really not much different from being out in space. We live in the car just like in a space ship. We've enough concentrated supplies to last for a year. How far do we go? Why? When?"
 
 They stepped upon the Earth and felt the warmth of the sun and strolled toward the top of the hill.
 
 "The air smells clean," he said.
 
 "The ground feels good. I think I'll take off my shoes." She did.
"Take off your boots, Michael. Try it."
 
 Wearily he pulled off his boots, stood in his bare feet. "It takes me back."
 
 "Yes," she said and began walking toward the hilltop.
 
 He followed, his boots slung around his neck. "There was a road somewhere, with the dust between my toes. Or was it a dream?"
 
 "I guess when the past is old enough," she said, "it becomes a dream."
 
 He watched her footprints in the dust. "God, listen to the quiet."
 
 "I can't seem to remember so much quiet around me. There's always been the sound of a space ship, or the pumps back in the cities."
 
 He did not answer but continued to watch her footsteps and to feel the dust squishing up between his toes. Then suddenly:
 
 "Mary!"
 
 She stopped, whirling around.
 
 He was staring down at her feet.
 
 She followed his gaze.
 
 "It's grass!" He bent down. "Three blades."
 
 She knelt beside him. They touched the green blades.
 
 "They're new," he said.
 
 They stared, like religious devotees concentrating upon some sacred object.
 
 He rose, pulling her up with him. They hurried to the top of the hill and stood very still, looking down into a valley. There were tiny patches of green and little trees sprouting, and here and there, a pale flower. The green was in a cluster, in the center of the valley and there was a tiny glint of sunlight in its center.
 
 "Oh!"
 
 Her hand found his.
 
 They ran down the gentle slope, feeling the patches of green touch their feet, smelling a new freshness in the air. And coming to the little spring, they stood beside it and watched the crystal water that trickled along the valley floor and lost itself around a bend. They saw a furry, little animal scurry away and heard the twitter of a bird and saw it resting on a slim, bending branch. They heard the buzz of a bee, saw it light on a pale flower at their feet and work at the sweetness inside.
 
 Mary knelt down and drank from the spring.
 
 "It's so cool. It must come from deep down."
 
 "It does," he said. There were tears in his eyes and a tightness in his throat. "From deep down."
 
 "We can live here, Michael!"
 
 Slowly he looked all around until his sight stopped at the bottom of a hill. "We'll build our house just beyond those rocks. We'll dig and plant and you'll have the child."
 
 "Yes!" she said. "Oh yes!"
 
 "And the ones back in the city will know the Earth again. Sometime we'll lead them back here and show them the Earth is coming alive." He paused. "By following what we had to do for ourselves, we've found a way to save them."
 
 They remained kneeling in the silence beside the pool for a long time. They felt the sun on their backs and looked into the clean depth of the water deeply aware of the new life breathing all around them and of themselves absorbing it, and at the same time giving back to it the life that was their own.
 
 There was only this quiet and breathing and warmth until Michael stood and picked up a rock and walked toward the base of the hill where he had decided to build the house.
 
 
 ... THE END
What is the plot of the story?
3
2b5d54ad8a874508a73250d2dc7f594d
Michael and Mary were sent to look for another planet for humans to live on. After looking for two thousand years, their "Milky Way" expedition had failed to find an alternative, but humans were desperate because Earth was scorched and not easily liveable. The President is taken aback by the news, and his council looked at some footage from the expedition, watching ships explode and seeing dangerous atmospheres that would not sustain human life. A thousand people were grown from cultured scar tissue only to die violent deaths, so people yelled for the video to be shut off. President Davis explains that violent death is an unfamiliar thing to the contemporary humans, so he decided to lie to the public about the expedition details. Michael had promised Mary they would stay on Earth, but the government lying to the public was hard--Mary suggests that Michael can still leave, but he doesn't want to go without her, and she wants to stay on the planet she came from, even if it means a difficult life on Earth. They remember their lockets, that give them the option of a quick death in case they had gotten trapped in a dangerous situation, but they don't want to threaten to kill themselves either. Mary admits she's pregnant, which is surprising because humans in this day are cultured from scar tissue. With heavy hearts, they looked out onto the city where the large TV screens were promising the public an idyllic planet that would one day be recovered again, through a different mission, which is disheartening because their own mission had turned into a lie. They went back into the council chambers and sat again. Michael and Mary were told they'd be kept in solitary confinement to protect the public, which was ironic since Mary wanted to stay on Earth to avoid loneliness. Michael reminds the President of the lockets he and his wife have, and there is panic--what is there to do? The President demanded they hand over the lockets, but Michael and Mary stay strong and ask to be let outside of the city's protective barrier so that they can experience a natural death. The President conceded, so that he didn't have to look at them anymore, and gave them the car that they asked for. They have supplies to last a year, but don't know where to go or what to do. They get out of their car and take their shoes off to walk around, experiencing quiet for the first time in memory. To their surprise, they found three blades of grass, and run to a hill to see other patches of green in the area, some animals, and a small spring. They have hope: they can build a house, have a child, and eventually they can show the ones in the city that there is hope much closer than they realized. 
6
5a6aa37b2cc2440f8ae6786b75a1ed7c
Michael and Mary arrive back on Earth after a 2,000-year expedition scouting the galaxy for any potential new planets for humans to move to. After finding nothing, Michael is hesitant to report the news back to Earth and wants to stay in space. Mary, however, insists they return to Earth, so they step out of their spaceship and give the first press conference detailing their failed exploit. Michael does not hold back on the details and shocks the hopeful humans to their core. The President pulls them aside and interrogates them with his council. They share all the pictures from their adventures into the galaxy, showing yellow aliens, planets with deadly atmospheres, and horrific images of the other couples on the expedition dying. The council becomes ill at the images of their gruesome deaths, so the President shuts down the slideshow. Apparently, humans were no longer accustomed to violent deaths, as they hadn’t had to see any for thousands of years. The last time such an occurrence happened, a man was struck and killed by a ground car, and all the witnesses were driven mad. The President had shut down any potential violent deaths from then on. 
The President asks for hope from Michael and Mary, but they are unable to give him any. They send them out of the chambers to deliberate their fate. Michael and Mary discuss their options. Mary wants to stay and die on Earth, while Michael wants to escape. They decide to use their lockets which cause instant death for the wearers to force the council’s hand. Mary reveals that she is pregnant, something that hasn’t occurred for three thousand years due to overpopulation laws, and Michael agrees to stay on Earth. 
They return to the chambers, and the President delivers their verdict. They are condemned to isolation until the next expedition is set out, because he fears they will reveal the truth to Earth. He sent out a broadcast earlier saying there was hope after all, as they had found a planet, but lost it, so another expedition would be sent out soon. Michael and Mary refuse their isolation, and threaten to kill themselves with the lockets unless they are released and given a ground car and supplies. The President agrees after he and his congregation are thrown by the thought of watching someone die in front of their eyes. 
The story flashes forward to Mary and Michael driving out of the city and into the sandy mountains. They come to a valley and step out of the car, placing their bare feet on the soil. Mary sees three blades of grass and shows Michael excitedly. They run down the hill and discover baby trees, flowers, wildlife, and a small stream. The Earth is healing itself, and they had the proof. Thrilled that htey will be able to live off the land, they start planning where they will put their cabin and when they will reintroduce this new Earth to humanity. 

10
b50710fd82f6443ab5eb3481ffa6efe0
Michael and Mary are returning from a mission to discover other planets in the Milky Way suitable for human colonization. During their exploration, which spanned two thousand years, the one thousand other humans sent with them had all died. They are the lone survivors, returning to Earth with grave news that there is no other place in the galaxy humans can move to. The remaining humans on Earth are overjoyed when they make radio contact because their life on Earth is confined to a city huddled around a water hole in a desert where their technology for distilling the salty water is the only thing keeping them alive on a planet they condemn as devoid of any other resources.
 
Michael is hesitant to land on Earth, but Mary is determined to spend the rest of her life there now. They land and deliver a speech to a cheering crowd of white faces that are the same as those that had cheered when their mission departed two thousand years ago. Humans have technology to tissue culture new bodies and effectively become immortal. Pregnancy was outlawed 3000 years ago to control the population, and ever since then they have been regenerating their bodies. Michael announces that there are no other habitable planets. President Davis begs Michael to retract what he has said, and tells the public that there has been a mistake, that everything will be “all right”, and that they should go back to work and wait for more information. 
Michael and Mary are brought to the council to deliver a 60 second video documenting their entire two thousand year mission. Most disturbing is that it shows the violent deaths of many explorers - some being sucked into the gravity of foreign planets, or their ships exploding after colliding with meteors. Violent death was last witnessed on Earth hundreds of years ago, and all of the witnesses went insane. The video is shocking and disturbing. The President quickly denies the validity of the video evidence, desperately trying to avoid any hysteria by the public. Michael and Mary are told to wait outside the council chambers while their fate is decided. 
Michael thinks they should have never landed on the planet, but Mary reveals she is pregnant and wants to remain on Earth. They plan to leave the city by threatening to kill themselves in front of the council. Out the window, they glimpse a public screen projection showing that there is going to be a new mission to space and everything will be “all right”. The council decides Michael and Mary will be placed in solitary confinement. The couple threaten to kill themselves using their lockets in front of the council, a violent death that would make those who see it go insane. They demand a ground car with a year of supplies, which they are granted. They leave the city together and soon discover an oasis with spring water to build a house next to and raise their child.
8
e064fa13989f48f78d9ff71121077f38
Michael and Mary return to Earth from a 2,000-year-long mission to find a planet suitable for human habitation because Earth's resources have slowly dwindled away due to human greed and atomic war. Michael would rather end his life than tell those remaining on Earth that their mission had failed, but Mary believes they owe it to the one thousand who had perished on the expedition to reveal the truth to them. Besides, 2,000 years away from Earth is a long time, and she misses home. A crowd eagerly welcomes them, including President Davis, and Michael soon confesses no planets exist that can support human life. He and Mary have returned to Earth to stay and die. President Davis whisks them away from the troubled crowd and brings them to the council chambers, where Michael and Mary reveal the documentary footage of their trip. They show the council hundreds of years' worth of visual evidence of all the planets they visited, all the strange creatures they encountered, and, worst of all, the explicit, violent deaths of their fellow travelers. Upon seeing these deaths, the council members insist Michael and Mary turn off the footage. They are horrified by the violent images because it has been hundreds of years since any human has died a violent death; seeing such images would drive them insane. As the President and council members discuss the couple's fate, Michael and Mary await their decision and discuss what to do next. Michael wants to go back to space, while Mary wants to stay on Earth because she has grown weary of traveling and exhausted by the process of reincarnation that has kept them both alive for 2,000 years. Mary reminds Michael of the lockets they carry--lockets that were given to them prior to departing for their journey that have the power to kill them instantly in order to avoid a painful death. Mary suggests using this locket as leverage against the council, who would grant whatever they asked in exchange for not having to witness their gruesome suicides in person. She also reveals she is pregnant. Later, President Davis announces the council has altered their documentary footage in order to spare the hope of their people, and he tells Michael and Mary that they will spend the rest of their lives in solitary confinement with everything provided for them, including the tools of reincarnation. At that moment, Michael threatens to trigger his locket unless the council gives him and Mary a ground car and provisions and lets them leave the force walls surrounding the last-remaining Earth settlement. President Davis grants their wish. Together, Michael and Mary head out into the desolation of Earth. Soon they discover evidence of new life on Earth including grass, birds, and water. They set out to build their home and prepare to restore civilization.
Describe Michael and Mary's relationship and their conflicting preferences
3
2b5d54ad8a874508a73250d2dc7f594d
Michael and Mary are two humans who were sent on an expedition to find a habitable planet elsewhere in the solar system after humans destroyed their own planet during the Atomic Wars, and continued to drive it into the ground through their own greed for resources. Three thousand years after the Wars, the expedition was sent out (so five thousand years have passed in total since the Wars). Michael and Mary are the only two people who survived, and their return was two thousand years after they left Earth. They are married, though contemporary relationships do not involve much physical touching as compared to the twenty-first century, in a few ways. When Michael hugs Mary to comfort her, he mentions that it is a custom of the past. In their society, it is illegal to have children through sexual intercourse, so it is a surprise at the end of the story when Mary admits that she might be pregnant. They have endured a lot together on their mission in outer space, and have had to watch a lot of people die. It was very isolating to be in space, living on a ship, and this is part of their other major discussion: what to do when their mission was over. Michael had some desire to stay in space and not return to the scorched planet. However, Mary wanted to return to Earth, and the two of them wanted to stay together no matter what. This turned out to work in their favor: staying on Earth but wanting to stay alive is what gave them the opportunity to find the patches of life they found at the end of the story. 
6
5a6aa37b2cc2440f8ae6786b75a1ed7c
The first initial conflict of the story is the debate between Michael and Mary as to whether or not to return to the stars or stay on Earth. Mary wants to place her feet on solid ground again and die with the earth as humans were meant to do, but Michael wants to return to space and escape the burden of sharing their catastrophic news with their fellow man.  Mary wins the debate, claiming that she hasn’t asked much of Michael over their 2,000-year relationship. 
As the story continues, the reader sees how they deal with their trauma differently. Michael still wants to return to space and asks Mary if they can after presenting their findings to the President’s council. She says he can go without her, but he doesn’t think he could be away from her. Mary wants to die on the earth, while Michael wants to escape to space once again. When Michael hears that Mary is pregnant, he hops on board with her idea to stay on Earth. 
Michael and Mary are clearly a team. They have worked and existed together for 2,000 years without change and have watched all their friends and colleagues die. This trauma clearly bonded them, as Michael says he could never return to space without Mary. Although they may differ, they reach compromises and work together to find the best solution for the two of them. 

10
b50710fd82f6443ab5eb3481ffa6efe0
Michael and Mary are two humans from Earth who have effectively become immortal through a scar tissue culturing technology that allows them to continually regenerate entirely new bodies for themselves as their bodies grow old and die. They have been regenerating their bodies like this, and living on a spaceship together exploring the Milky Way for 2000 years. They love each other deeply.
When they finally return to Earth to deliver the horrible news that there is no other planet in the galaxy that humans can live on, Mary declares to him that she must stay on Earth. She insists that she has loved him for so long (thousands of years) and has asked for very little except for them to now remain on Earth. 
Michael feels as though they should not have ever landed on Earth, but instead wishes they just delivered their message by radio and returned back into space. He can’t understand why she wants to live on Earth when it is so desolate. However, he says that he can not be without her and will kill himself if he were to go back into space alone. When Mary reveals in private to Michael that she is pregnant, they know they will not be accepted by society and hatch a plan to leave the city together. A human has not given birth to a child for 3000 years on Earth. Pregnancy was forbidden to reduce the population until it was low enough that there were sufficient resources available to sustain those that remained.
They successfully escape their city and the fate of solitary confinement from the council by threatening to kill themselves with their lockets, which would be a violent death that would cause the onlookers to go insane. This is so shocking and unacceptable to the council that the President grants them a ground car and a year of supplies to leave the city and never return. Michael and Mary find an oasis with vegetation and fresh spring water not far on their journey outside the city. It is a place for them to build a house and raise their child, which is joyful for both of them.

8
e064fa13989f48f78d9ff71121077f38
Michael and Mary are a couple deeply in love. They join a crew of one thousand other humans, also comprised of couples, who leave Earth in order to find another habitable planet. As their fellow travelers slowly die over the course of 2,000 years, Michael and Mary continue to reincarnate through a special process of culturing their scar tissue. They also carry lockets that can kill them instantly when triggered and help them avoid a painful death. When they realize their mission has failed, Michael and Mary return to Earth to announce the news. Michael wishes to go back to space since he cannot stand the desolation of Earth and would rather spend the rest of his existence with Mary exploring the universe. Mary wants to stay on Earth because she misses her home and because she is pregnant, although she does not reveal this to Michael until just before President Davis reveals his decision to place the couple in solitary confinement. Michael is shocked because pregnancy had been banned on Earth at the time that atomic war and human greed had laid bare the planet's essential resources. Together, they decide to use their lockets as leverage against the council to force them to permit them to leave the city. Soon after doing so, they discover Earth is regenerating, and they will be able to make a new home for their child.
Describe the mission that Michael and Mary were sent on
3
2b5d54ad8a874508a73250d2dc7f594d
Michael and Mary were on a mission to find a habitable planet after the Atomic Wars decimated Earth, making it barely habitable. It was a long journey, and the two have been gone from Earth for a long time--they had undergone reincarnation for two thousand years. However, nobody else on the expedition made it--all of the children who were created through the culturing of scar tissue died in various ways, including ships suffering violent explosions and being struck by rocks in space. This meant that a thousand other people died, and Mary wanted to keep living for the sake of these people that perished on the mission. They returned to Earth on their ship called the Milky Way with the bad news that none of the planets they encountered would have been able to sustain human life, and even if they had found one, the journey there would have been so dangerous that a vast majority of the people who attempted to travel there would never have made it alive.
6
5a6aa37b2cc2440f8ae6786b75a1ed7c
Two thousand years before The Valley by Richard Stockham begins, Michael, Mary, and a thousand other couples were sent out into space to locate a new home for the humans. The Atomic Wars and several thousand years of greed, gluttony, and selfishness destroyed the Earth, leaving behind only a barren wasteland. Presumably, the President created new laws to protect humans as is, curbing population growth and finding new ways to grow food and exist on this barren planet. All humans are crowded in one city and exist through reincarnation, so no babies can be born. 
Since the Earth was truly no longer able to support any sort of life (be it flora or fauna), a grand expedition was sent out to see if a mass exodus could occur. However, after two thousand years of searching, Michael and Mary conclude that humans were given one planet and one planet only. 

10
b50710fd82f6443ab5eb3481ffa6efe0
Michael and Mary were sent on an exploratory space mission from Earth with one thousand other humans to discover other planets in the Milky Way that were suitable for human colonization. The purpose of the mission was to move humanity to a new planet after the destruction of Earth from atomic wars and greed. During their two thousand year exploration, the thousand others sent with them had all died. They had seen many life forms on different planets and a variety of alien creatures. The thousand others with them had died violent deaths in the dangers of space, sometimes hurtling into alien planets or exploding by meteor collisions.
What they discovered is that Earth is the only planet habitable for humans and there is no other place in the galaxy that they can go. This is shocking news to the rest of the people of Earth, who have been waiting for those two thousand years to have news of hope that there is somewhere else they can move. The resources on Earth have been exploited to an extreme, where the only humans remaining are living in a tightly clustered city around a salty body of water they must pump and distill to sustain themselves, surrounded by dusty desert.

8
e064fa13989f48f78d9ff71121077f38
Due to the ravages of atomic war and the insatiable greed of humankind, Earth has been left in a desolate state. The last remaining humans live in a city next to a shrinking sea, from which they gather water through loud, throbbing pumps. Mary describes the situation as a family living in a home that they do not take of; instead, they move from room to room as the house slowly falls to pieces around them. Michael and Mary join a cohort of one thousand other humans who make their way into space in order to discover a new planet suitable for human habitation. Over the course of their 2,000-year journey, they come upon a number of planets, none of which can support human life: Some of the planets have toxic atmospheres, others dangerous winds and animals. Along the way, the rest of their cohort is violently decimated while Michael and Mary remain alive thanks to the process of reincarnation. 
Describe the President's communciations to the public and the reasoning behind his choices
3
2b5d54ad8a874508a73250d2dc7f594d
In the earth of the future that is at the center of this story, the society has managed to reduce accidents so much that violent deaths do not happen. This happened because some people reacted with hysterics to witnessing death of this type, so efforts were made to avoid the issue entirely, which had been successful for the past few hundred years. President Davis did not want the public to hear any more details about the expedition after Michael and Mary first addressed everyone. He says that the only reason the public has not lost all sense after seeing some of the footage from the expedition is that it was visual media and stories, but not something people witnessed first-hand for themselves. However, he does not want to expose the people to the violent deaths that the people on the expedition suffered, so he claims that Michael and Mary did not tell the truth, in an effort to save face. The President considers this type of lying to be for the good of the people, who cannot handle the reality of the expedition. He also does not think that the people could handle the loss of hope for another planet to live on, which is why he plays the ad campaigns for a new expediton in a different solar system that aims to eventually find (or rediscover, in his words) another planet for humans to inhabit, perhaps in Andromeda. In this way, the President thinks it is better for his people to have false hope instead of no hope at all. The reader sees the irony in this at the end of the story when Michael and Mary find the patch of life that has started to re-establish itself outside of the boundaries of the city they ventured from. 
6
5a6aa37b2cc2440f8ae6786b75a1ed7c
Michael and Mary return to Earth after 2,000 years only to report the worst news possible: there is no other virgin planet in this galaxy that has the ability to shelter humans. They announce their news to the public, but the President quickly shuts down the conference and brings them inside so they can report their more detailed findings. After showing them the pictures of the various planets, aliens, and demises of their colleagues, they concur once again that Earth is their only home. However, the President lies to the public, releasing a broadcast stating that they found and lost a planet, and another expedition will be sent out shortly to relocate their new home. He claims that his people need hope to keep going, which may be true. After living for thousands of years through reincarnation on barren Earth, his people are desperate for hope and a new planet. Without hope, their entire society would fall apart, as their eventual deaths would become a very real future. 
10
b50710fd82f6443ab5eb3481ffa6efe0
When Michael and Mary land on Earth and report that there are no other habitable planets for humans to move to in the Milky Way galaxy after two thousand years of space exploration, President Davis quickly moves to silence their truth. The President begs Michael to take back what he has said to the people, and when he refuses, the President quickly pivots the message to the public. He declares that there has been a mistake, and tells them that everything will be “all right” and that they should all go back to the pumps and distilleries to work and wait for more information.
Michael and Mary present deeply disturbing video evidence to the President and council detailing the gruesome deaths of their thousand other peers sent on the mission because of the dangers of space travel. Some died by explosions in meteor fields or getting sucked into the gravity of dangerous planetary bodies. The President knows that the people of Earth have not witnessed the image of a violent death in hundreds of years, and that the last time it was seen all the witnesses went insane. The President quickly denies the video evidence in front of the council, saying that what they showed was only a picture, and if it were screened for the rest of the people on Earth there would be mass hysteria.
The President is desperately trying to avoid any hysteria by the public, and fears that if they knew the real truth from Michael and Mary that their society would cease to function entirely. The council ultimately decides that Michael and Mary will never be allowed to mingle with the public on Earth because their truth is too dangerous for people to know. They will be taken care of, and allowed to continue their lives as they have been in solitary confinement. The President informs the public that the statement Michael made was untrue, and quickly begins a new ad campaign of hope in the city by announcing a new mission to explore a different galaxy for habitable planets.

8
e064fa13989f48f78d9ff71121077f38
When Michael and Mary return from space, President Davis is overwhelmed but hopeful that they have discovered a planet suitable for human life. When Michael unceremoniously reveals that the mission was a failure, President Davis immediately ushers them off stage and takes them before a small council, where they show them the visual footage with evidence proving their mission to be a failure along with the violent deaths of the rest of their thousand-person cohort. President Davis explains that the remaining humans have not seen a violent human death in hundreds of years and seeing such footage would surely drive them insane. The council members themselves lash out and insist the footage be turned off when they see it. After convening privately with the council, President Davis informs Michael and Mary that they have scrubbed the violent footage and replaced it with images intended to give the people hope that there is a habitable planet. He also informs them that they will be placed in solitary confinement with all necessities and comforts provided to them as thanks for their service to humankind. He reasons that keeping them away from the rest of the people will help preserve the image of hope he wants to foster amongst the people.
What is the role of the lockets in the story and how do they connect to the various societies
3
2b5d54ad8a874508a73250d2dc7f594d
Michael and Mary, who have both just returned from a long expedition in a spacecraft, each keep a small golden locket around their neck. They were given these when they left on their mission, as a sort of escape hatch: if they were ever caught in a dangerous situation where they would have to die painful deaths, they could scratch themselves with the locket and they would die a quick and painless death instead of suffering. This is the first hint we see at the society's growing avoidance of painful deaths. For the people on the expedition, they were a tool to be used in case of emergency for the sake of the person wearing them. In the context of the society on Earth, however, they were a tool to negotiate the terms of how Michael and Mary would live. They considered threatening using these lockets to kill themselves, which they eventually did in a discussion with the President and his council. After they used the lockets, although they would die painless deaths, it would look very painful to the witnesses as the bodies experienced shock, so President Davis didn't want his people to see this. 
6
5a6aa37b2cc2440f8ae6786b75a1ed7c
The lockets were given to all of the many members of the expedition into space to find a new, untainted home planet. These necklaces were outfitted with a device that would kill the wearer, presumably when held up to their throats as is demonstrated in the story, painlessly and quickly. In the 2,000 years since Michael, Mary, and the rest of the expedition left Earth, humans grew unaccustomed to violence. In fact, the sight of a man being killed by a ground car on accident sent all witnesses into a state of utter insanity. This incapacity for violence turns out to be of great use to Michael and Mary, who saw the rest of their team die horrible, bloody deaths over the course of their two-thousand-year-long journey. 
After the President condemns Michael and Mary to isolation due to their findings and unwillingness to return to space or lie to the public, the two threaten to kill themselves in front of his whole congregation, which would send the room into shock and panic. People begin to freak out, whispering about how crazy they are, but the President and his colleagues see the real danger in this. They don’t believe Mary and Michael will actually do it, so they step closer to them, which only causes them to bring the lockets closer to their necks. The President and his people’s unfamiliarity with violence saves Michael and Mary from isolation, as the President grants all their wishes in return for their lives. 

10
b50710fd82f6443ab5eb3481ffa6efe0
The lockets were given to the original cohort of space explorers, including Michael and Mary, that went out on a two thousand year mission to find other planets suitable for human colonization in the Milky Way galaxy. The function of the locket is to provide a quick and painless death to the wearer should they be in a situation where they are going to have a painful death. The wearer simply presses the locket and scratches themselves with it to kill themselves. Although painless to them, their bodies appear to writhe and convulse until they go lifeless. 
Michael and Mary use the threat of killing themselves with their lockets in front of the President and the council to demand they be allowed to leave the city in a ground car with supplies instead of being put into solitary confinement for the foreseen future. They cause an uproar in the council chambers when they hold the lockets to their necks, with onlookers shocked and frightened by the thought of their own horrible fate if they witness their death. This is effective, because the death from the locket appears violent to those watching and they fear going insane if they see it.
Lockets are a method for the explorers to kill themselves, which is an interesting juxtaposition to the society remaining on Earth. Their main objective is perpetuating themselves through scar tissue regeneration technology that essentially provides them with immortality, and strict avoidance of death. 

8
e064fa13989f48f78d9ff71121077f38
Prior to leaving for the mission to find a habitable planet for humans to relocate to, Michael and Mary are both given lockets that can be triggered to cause immediate death. The purpose is to avoid a potentially violent and painful death from whatever threat might be encountered out in unknown space. When they return to Earth 2,000 years later, Michael wants to press the locket rather than return to inform the people of their failure. Mary insists they return, however, presumably because she misses home (in reality, it is because she is pregnant). After President Davis and the council meet privately to determine the couple's fate, Mary reminds Michael that they have a bargaining chip available to them that will allow them to determine their own fate: the lockets. Because humans have not seen violent death in hundreds of years, Mary knows that the council will yield to whatever they demand in exchange for not having to witness their suicides in person. In this way, Michael and Mary negotiate their release from the city and are effectively banished outside the force walls.