Name this sci-fi story please

[RedTomato]

Can you name this story / author? I read it maybe 15 / 20 years ago.

It's about a bunch of people pulling a very heavy object down a long narrow corridor, for religious reasons. Eventually they reach the end of the corridor, celebrate briefly, then race back to their starting point with the object, which is suddenly much lighter. They then start pulling the now heavy object down the corridor all over again.

As the story proceeds, we learn they've been doing this for multiple generations, for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Then we learn they are actually in a starship that has broken down for some reason, and the object they are pulling is some sort of switchable space-time anchor, and step by step they are hauling their entire starship across millions of miles back home.

Any ideas?

 

[Tomorrow]

Doesn't ring a bell, but it sounds like a good one.

Hope someone can come up with a name, I'd like to give it a read.

 

[leekohler]

Wow- I don't know either, but it does sound good.

 

[Mac'nCheese]

Doesn't ring a bell, but it sounds like a good one.

Hope someone can come up with a name, I'd like to give it a read.

Why bother? HE BLEW THE ENDING!!!

 

[RedTomato]

If I didn't tell you the ending, you wouldn't recognise it.

Time to find a sci-fi forum methinks.

 

[Tomorrow]

Time to find a sci-fi forum methinks.

Please post the title/author here if you find it!

 

[mscriv]

Is it a short story or a full book/novel?

 

[RedTomato]

Think it was a short story.

 

[Mousse]

Think it was a short story.

I figured as much. There was just too little material for a full blown novel. Just a guess, but it sounds like something Arthur C. Clarke would write. He's big on religious references in his short stories. I've been digging through several anthologies of Sci-Fi short stories in my personal library, but have come up short so far.

That plot line has me so interested, I HAVE TO READ THAT STORY.

 

[ComputersaysNo]

Your desciption got me interested so i did a search.

Here are a bunch of old sci-fi stories described, wading thrue it right now:

Click

edit* Another list of SF short stories http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_short_stories.html

 

[RedTomato]

Thanks for the tips. It does sound a bit like Clarke. I've just looked through his short story bibliography on wiki, and it's not there.

Here are a bunch of old sci-fi stories described, wading thrue it right now:

Click

Had a look, don't think it's there. These stories seem a bit too old style - the story I'm thinking of was slightly more modern.

edit* Another list of SF short stories http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_short_stories.html

Thanks. I'm a bit embarrassed to say I've read most of them It isn't there.

 

[chrmjenkins]

It's a popular theme in classical literature/religious texts.

For example, the myth of sisyphus (who is condemned to rolling a rock up a hill only to have it return to the bottom under the force of gravity, repeat ad infinitum), or of God telling Elijah to push against a stone with all his might as a test of obedience.