Space 1999 - Earthfall Page 24

  “He looks good,” commented the girl at her side. “But look at Selima—she’s beautiful!”

  Paula, two years younger than her brother, sighed with envy. Her hair was dyed purple but she had the fine skin of a natural blonde and, like Michael, she had inherited her father’s eyes.

  And she was right—Selima was beautiful.

  A fact others had noted, Michael among them, and Helena wondered if, later, there could be trouble. Emotions could be dangerous things as they had already learned. Years ago now, shortly after the Change, when old mores still clung and old notions held sway a man had strangled his mistress after learning the child she carried had been sired by another.

  Two lives lost because of jealous madness and a third had followed when the man had been executed—the original libralism had been an early victim to the New Regime.

  New laws, she thought, settling back into her seat as the ceremony progressed. A return to the naked, essential props of survival divorced from all misguided ideals. All life was valuable; those who took it paid with their own. Material was precious; those who stole it or wasted it suffered physical anguish. Privacy was essential; those who wilfully invaded it were punished. Sexual freedom was paramount; none who tried to imprison another in the web of their own, emotional need, could be tolerated.

  And the children—the children were everything.

  Helena glanced around, the ranked seats of the theatre, seeing the young faces, the sparkling eyes of those who watched, some with their parents, others with just their mothers or alone. All looking at the ceremony in which, when they grew old enough, would participate.

  The puberty rite which Rita Cantry had devised.

  “We need it,” she’d insisted during discussions in Council. “Every tribe has some ritual which symbolically turns a boy into a man. Some indude women in the ceremonies.”

  “Tribal scars,” said Kano. “Drums beating while teeth are knocked out. A ritual hunt—can’t we get rid of such savagery?”

  “Being given the key to the door,” said Morrow, dryly. “Gaining the right to vote, the right to marry—is that so savage?”

  “It isn’t the same.”

  “Basically it is,” said Rita. “But I agree with David, those bloodthirsty rituals are out. We don’t need them to prove a warrior’s courage—or to satisfy the sadism of the Elders. But there must be some ceremony to distinguish the promotion of a child to an adult.”

  Koenig said, “Why?”

  “I think you know the answer to that Commander. A child is, basically, irresponsible. The greatest mistake any culture can make is to regard a child as a small adult and to treat it as such. A child is not a small adult; it is essentially alien—an animal seeking to define and explore its boundaries. To deny a child those boundaries is to warp its development.”

  “Orientation,” said Koenig.

  “Exactly,” agreed Rita Cantry. “A child needs to know what it can and cannot do. What is permissible and what is not. A child is and must be a rebel. It cannot be that if there is nothing to rebel against. Unless there are boundaries they cannot be extended. Unless there is a firm, recognizable authority, it cannot be questioned.”

  And, unless authority was questioned, it turned into an oppressive despotism. An Establishment dedicated to maintaining its own power at any cost. To put its own advancement, privilege and freedom from responsibility above the common weal. A monster which could be destroyed only by bloody revolution.

  “Education,” said Carter. He had listened without previous comment. “Everything depends on it. I figure a good teacher is one who makes a child want to learn. And learning should be something useful. We can dump political history for a start. And all that rubbish about Kings and Queens.”

  “Battles, flags, the shift of national boundaries,” added Morrow.

  “Talk about the ‘Third World’,” said Kane. “And slavery.”

  “Geography,” said Roache. “What do we know of Earth now? Teach them engineering; how to use their hands and to build a machine.”

  “Psychology,” said Rita. “How to understand each other.”

  And medicine, and chemistry and environmental science, botony, metallurgy, how to pilot and maintain an Eagle, electronics—the list was ripe with promise.

  “We’ll work out a system of merit-badges,” said Rita. “Set targets for them to aim at and give a concrete and visible reward.”

  “Boy Scouts?”

  “Baden-Powell had a good system, Alan, and it worked. We can use it. In fact we can use everything which has proved its value. A new start—we can do anything we want!”

  And she had insisted on the ceremony.

  And rightly so, thought Helena, watching it take place. It marked a high-point in the lives of the young and provided a twice-yearly festival. It differentiated adults from those not yet experienced enough to exercise free-choice and, like an examination, it showed those who had worked hardest and achieved most.

  A spiral, the young striving to best the old, the old, eventually, having to stand aside.

  But it was hard to accept the thought that anyone could be Commander other than Koenig.

  She looked at him as he stood on the stage; tall, his hair touched now with grey, the lines deeper on his face, the eyes a little more deep-set, a little more bruised. The years had been kind to him, she decided, as they had to all of them. The gravity, of course, the one-sixth normal which reduced physical strain and lessened the demands on heart and sinew. And, more important, had been the absence of mental stress. Alpha was a Community with all that implied. No one now was in any sense alone. No one was, or could be, ignored. Each had a voice in all matters appertaining to their world. Each was an individual.

  Men and women working with pride. Building for themselves and their children. Seeing the result of their labors grow as they watched. This theatre, the garden, the swimming pool, the observation deck, the extended living quarters, the recreation halls and crêches and schoolrooms. The cinema. The concert hall. The saunas and sun-rooms and gymnasiums.

  “Look at that! Just look!”

  Helena blinked, conscious she had been wool gathering, aware of Paula’s voice at her side.

  “Michael touched her. He squeezed her arm, I saw it. Do you think she will bear his child? I know Selima likes him, in fact I’m sure they’ve been lovers. Do you think so?”

  “Do I think, what?”

  “That she will want to bear Michael’s child?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “But you’d know, wouldn’t you? I mean, she’d ask to see the genetic records and you’re Head of Medical and she’d—”

  Helena said, firmly, “You know better than to ask such things. What Selima does is her business.”

  “How many children do you think she’ll have? Two, like you did? More? Why did you only have two?”

  “That’s a personal question, Paula.”

  “I’m sorry.” The girl was immediately contrite. “It’s just that—I’m sorry.”

  Sorry and brash and unthinking—excusable in a child but not in an adult. She had two years to rid herself of bad habits and Helena made a mental note to check her curriculum. She could, perhaps, gain advantage from a shift in the slant of her education.

  The ceremony had been an ordeal and Koenig was glad when it was over. He would have dodged it but Rita had insisted and he had been left with no choice but to co-operate. As the Commander it was his place to welcome the new adults into the world of Alpha. If nothing else it allowed them to see his humanity, his ordinariness as he had shaken hands and spoken to them and made them feel that each individual had an important part to play. That all were equal.

  One day they would vote him down as they would to each of the Council. Vote him down and replace him with another of their choice. Michael? It was natural to be ambitious for his son but ambition wasn’t enough. The boy would have to prove himself best fitted for the position in more ways than one.

  Well, there
was time yet. Education had taught the value of patience and the recognition of personal limitations and inadequacies. Before any aspirant could take his place he or she would have to undergo a wider experience than had yet been possible. Ten years, a least, he thought. Ten years and maybe many more. But not too many—no man could live for ever.

  “John!”

  He turned to face her as she came towards him, his hands lifting to touch her own in a double-contact; a custom now so installed it seemed an ancient tradition.

  “Alone, Helena?”

  “Paula rushed off to join her friends. I think she is having an affair with Tanya’s boy, Ydenba.”

  “Isn’t he involved with Sandra’s girl?”

  “That was two months ago. Anyway, she needs to experiment.” Helena met his eyes. “She was curious as to why I only had two children.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “That I couldn’t have more? No. She has to learn not to be curious about other people’s private lives. I think she needs a change in her teaching programme. A course of self-discipline might be the answer. I’ll talk to Monica about it.”

  Koenig nodded, thinking of how the woman had changed from when she had been Teal’s mistress. But Monica Harvey wasn’t the only one who had learned new ways and she had certainly turned out to be a fine educationalist. A pity she had no children. Helena shrugged when he mentioned it.

  “It was her decision, John.”

  “Then she isn’t sterile? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “You shouldn’t ask. What did you think of the ceremony?”

  “It was impressive.”

  “Yes, darling, and so were you.”

  But the children had been the most impressive thing of all, Koenig remembered the faces thronging the auditorium, the tall figures lithe with trained and developed muscle.

  Mens sana in corpore sano.

  A sound mind in a sound body—the ancients had not been devoid of wisdom. But Alpha had progressed far beyond that simple goal; training young and receptive minds to the full extent of their capabilities and discovering in which direction each individual’s talent lay.

  “We’ve done well, John.” Helena, through long association, had learned to guess his train of thoughts. “And they will build on the foundations we’ve laid. And, maybe, one day—?”

  The hope, rarely spoken now, that one day they would find a habitable world with a breathable atmosphere and soil in which to grow familiar crops. Wheat and corn and bearded barley. Potatoes, tomatoes, succulent onions. Garlic and sage and other delectable herbs. They had the seeds and tubers, fresh from plants grown in the hydroponic vats—the fruit of Simmonds’s caution. Now, if they could only find another Earth, they could build Paradise.

  But where, in this alien universe, could such a world be found?

  “Let’s walk,” said Helena. “You’re looking solemn, John, and that’s a bad sign. I prescribe a little gentle exercise.”

  “The Festival?”

  “Can do without us for a while. In any case I’m too old for such activities.”

  “Now you’re fishing for a compliment.”

  “And you should give me one.” She squeezed his arm. “Later, perhaps. Let’s just walk for now.”

  He fell into step beside her, guessing the ceremony had affected her more than she was willing to admit. The ritual which meant the loss of a son as the child became a man. The reason why so many women had cried at weddings, perhaps, yielding to the sense of personal loss. Or had it been the hard reminder that the years had passed and life was slipping away?

  He caught her hand with a sudden fear, closing his fingers on her own, feeling the wave of protective tenderness overwhelm him as it had so often before. The time of Michael’s birth when things had gone wrong and he had waited helplessly as others had worked to save both her and the child. Victor had helped then and again later, when Paula had been born and Mathias had taken steps to see that never again would Helena be placed in such peril. A bad time, eased only a little by the precious bottle of Napoleon brandy which Bergman had produced and shared.

  “John?” She looked down at his hand. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Sorry.” He released his fingers. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  A lie, he had been thinking too deeply about what had to come. The day when she would die and he be left without her. A bad thought and he shook his head to rid himself of it. If nothing else surely he should have learned the futility of anticipating what might never be. Death, which had reached for him so often, could take him first.

  Helena said, “John, let’s see the new environmental training ground.”

  A corridor led them to thick doors which opened to pass them into a passage sealed by more doors. A Security guard lifted a purple-sleeved arm in salute as they approached. He was not alone; the youngster with him, a girl of twelve, copied the gesture.

  Gravely Koenig returned the salute.

  “Myra?”

  “Yes, Commander. I’m on Security duty and later I’ll be working in the garden. Then—” She frowned. “The engineering shop, I think, or maybe the kitchens.”

  “They’ll come in turn. Do you like Security?”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted. “But it gets boring just standing on guard. I like it better when we’re on patrol but I don’t think I’ll become a regular.”

  “But you’ve no objection to taking your turn?”

  “No, Commander, of course not. It’s just that I’d rather work in the kitchens.”

  And would take up regular duties there, perhaps, when as an adult she could choose. But even then she would take her turn with the guards and so help to avoid the creation of a powerful elite.

  The doors led to a wide area flanked with a sheet of clear transparency. The roof curved down beyond the pane to meet the ground. Air-locks led through the partition to an area which was naked, Lunar plain. On it a cluster of small figures moved in line beneath the supervision of a bulky adult. Jed Gorion busy with his class.

  He waved as he saw them and, ushering his charges through the air-locks and back into the atmosphere of Alpha, he came to join them. Framed by his helmet his face was mottled with a mesh of tiny red lines; the marks of broken capillaries which had burst when his faceplate had broken and exposed his features to the void. Luck and quick thinking had saved him then. Now he passed on his skill.

  “Hello, Doctor! Commander?”

  “Just looking,” said Koenig. “How are they getting along?”

  “This bunch is a little slow which is why I’m holding them back from the Festival. I want to give them a suit-test before I let them go.”

  Koenig nodded and Gorion turned, faceplate open, to face his class.

  “Necho, you were a little careless out there. If you had slipped you could have been in real trouble. Sonya, you’ll have to concentrate more. Jarl, don’t worry so much about what others are doing. Now, I’ve a line of suits up there for you to check.” Gorion gestured to where they hung on a row of hooks. “De-suit, return and make your checks while I see how you’ve stowed your gear. Demerits for all who’ve skimped the job. The same for any who can’t give me a suit-report by the time I get back. Move!”

  The suits would have been deliberately sabotaged in small ways and Gorion would not be gentle to any who failed to find the fault. His face was a living example to any who underestimated the need for caution and he would drive the example home with extra tests and extra duties. In space a man could make only one mistake—his last.

  Helena was thoughtful as they left the area, remembering how Gorion had received his injuries, how other men had died. They had reached the observation dome before she realized where Koenig was taking her and she looked at the curved sweep of transparency which had replaced the earlier design. It was larger, the area it enclosed sectioned into secluded nooks, the place for lovers and those who felt the need of solitude while they let their vision rove among the stars. A dim and silvered place scented with the o
dor of blooms and touched with the enigma of creation. One of memories.

  She sat on the bench to which Koenig guided her, leaning back and looking at the vista of the stars. They shone as always, coldly remote, glittering points which stared like alien eyes, watching . . . always watching.

  Hating the intruder in their midst.

  A fancy and she knew it; stars could not hate, but Alpha had no cause to think of them as gentle. The enigmatic Queen had been but the first of many perils and each had taken its toll. The very place in which she now sat had been rebuilt after destruction had ripped a section of the installation into dust. Men and women had died, sometimes without knowing why, killed by forces almost beyond comprehension; Kufstein, Janson, Emecheta, Panyche, Chang, Saxby—how she had missed him!

  And the disappointments. The worlds investigated and found unsuitable and the others which had offered a transistory hope.

  She felt the touch of Koenig’s hand.

  “Thinking, darling?”

  “Remembering.”

  “Earth?”

  “Us.” She returned the pressure of his fingers. “The living and the dead. Too many dead, John.”

  “There are always too many.”

  People who were now fragments of a brief history, names in a record, their details locked in the banks of the computer. Had Emecheta blue eyes or brown? Had she been tall or short? Large breasted or small? The computer would know.

  As it would know about Ajwani and Hezekiah and Ivan Majolin. As it knew about Ambalo and Patel and Naeem Khawaja. As it knew about the rest.

  Names once belonging to five races and fifteen nationalities. Men and women who had died to turn the melange into one. Not Russian or Greek or American. Not Asian or Negro, Oriental or Caucasion or Mongolian. All now were one.

  Alphans.

  A shape moved against the stars and she stared at it relaxing as she recognized an Eagle. One returning from a routine patrol or from a training flight to prepare incipient adults for pilot’s duties. Alan Carter was probably at the controls—he would use any excuse to get into space.

  At her side Koenig lifted the commlock from his belt.