The Genesis Quest

by Donald Moffitt

  “We live just a little way down the main tunnel,” Orris said. “Our quarters face a courtyard with its own lenticule — so we’ll have real sunlight for at least part of the trip.”

  “You’ll have to excuse the mess,” Marg said. “I haven’t really got it fixed up the way I want it yet.”

  Three oversize Penserites were lounging in front of the tunnel entrance. One of them stepped into Orris’s path. “You can’t go through here,” he said.

  “Huh? Why not?”

  “Nobody’s allowed to leave. You’ll have to go back inside and wait.”

  Orris peered at the man, more puzzled than annoyed. “Who are you? I don’t think I ever saw you before. I live down there.”

  “Better do as he says,” Bram said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Orris said. He tried to brush past the other and found a meaty hand clamped on his arm. The two remaining Penserites moved to block the entrance.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Marg said in a tone of steely reprimand. She tried to take a step forward, but Bram held her back.

  “Don’t, Marg,” he said. “Orris, come back here with me.”

  The big Penserite gave Orris a shove that sent him off balance. Orris caught himself, looking bewildered. Bram, with Kerthin’s help, got Orris and Marg to move a little distance away.

  “Do you know those people?” Marg said with outthrust chin.

  Bram squinted at the other tunnel entrances spaced out around the wooden cavern. All of them were guarded by Penserites, who were turning people back if they tried to leave. A real struggle was going on at one of the openings, where six or seven Penserites had converged to rough up a couple of stubborn cases.

  “They’re political zealots,” Bram said. “They’re followers of a man named Penser.”

  “Penser?” Marg said impatiently. “Who is he? I never heard of him.”

  Kerthin opened her mouth incredulously, and Bram cut in. “The Penserites are a kind of extreme offshoot of the Schismatist faction. They’ve been disowned by the main body of the Ascendist party.”

  “I don’t understand this at all,” Marg said. “They can’t go around behaving this way. I’m going to complain to the ship’s governing council.”

  “Wait,” Bram said, putting a hand on her arm. “Something’s happening.”

  There seemed to be a general movement toward the large open space in the center of the farm chamber, where bean fields and cabbage patches converged in wedge-shaped plots around a tiered circular service platform that formed a natural stage. Penserites were fanned out throughout the vast bowl, herding groups of stragglers, most of whom seemed to be taking the whole thing good-naturedly.

  “But what’s it all about?” said somebody from an unruly group of merrymakers who were dragging their feet as they passed, most of them still holding on to the drinks they’d had with them.

  “You’ll find out,” said one of the Penserites who were urging them along. “Keep going. Down this way.”

  As the group drew abreast, a Penserite made flagging motions. “You people over there. Come on. Everybody’s assembling down there.”

  “I don’t think …” Marg began. Some of the Penserites were spreading out to include Bram and the others in the befuddled little flock.

  “Do as he says,” Bram said. The Penserites were carrying sticks, lumps of metal, and tool handles. Nobody here had seen such things in use. Bram had.

  They let themselves be drawn along in the group’s wake. “It’s some kind of announcement,” somebody said knowledgeably. “Something important.”

  More people were trickling into the farm chamber from the connecting tunnels, with small teams of Penserites prodding them along. Strays were being rounded up. The movement was all in one direction. No one was being allowed out. The potential troublemakers were quickly singled out, grabbed, and hustled forcibly along or, in the worst cases, given a corrective punch in the belly or a tool handle in the kidney that quickly sapped the inclination to resist.

  By now, even the dullest-witted and drunkest realized that something odd and unpleasant was going on. A crowd murmur began to grow in the packed center of the mass of people in front of the tiered platform that had been selected as a focal point. Armed Penserites were spotted through the crowd, with more around the fringes to keep order.

  Penser stood gravely on the platform, talking to some of his Juxtian lieutenants, his hands clasped behind his back. He was wearing the same simple gray costume with the high neck and the gathered sleeves. A runner hurried up to him, spoke urgently while Penser nodded, then hurried off.

  The front ranks of the crowd, spilling up over the lower tiers of the platform, seemed to be composed entirely of Penserites — the rank and file members who were not part of the muscle squads. It was good strategy, Bram had to admit. They made a solid phalanx, conspicuously visible to the rest of the crowd, lending legitimacy to Penser.

  Even so, of the more than a thousand people present, not more than two or three hundred could be Penserites. But they knew what they wanted. And they were prepared to work in concert.

  Bram picked out Eena, a thin one-armed figure perched on the rim of a planting box. It was hard to tell at a distance, but he thought he recognized a number of people who bad dropped out of the organization after the death of Lal. Either they had rejoined or they had only pretended to drop out in order to lull the suspicions of the Ascendist leadership.

  Orris had drawn protectively close to Marg. “As soon as this is over and the ship’s council can get a message to Lowstation, these people will be removed,” he said confidently. “Forcibly, if necessary.”

  Kerthin darted a look at Bram’s face, but neither of them said anything. It was getting increasingly difficult to be heard in the babble that was growing around them.

  A bomb went off, another noisemaker like the one that had been used at the Ascendist meeting. It produced the same result. The babble died down. People focused their attention on the platform, where it was evident that something was about to happen.

  Penser looked out over the multitude as if he had all the time in the world. After a while he began to speak.

  “Some of you know me, some do not. It doesn’t matter. In myself I am not important. I am here to give you freedom. I am here to give you pride in yourself as human beings, the rightful owners of the cosmos. I am here to give you the universe!”

  He did not raise his voice particularly. People at the edge of the crowd had to strain to hear all the words. It got their attention. There was no whispering, no foot shuffling.

  “The days of man’s servitude are over. They are finished. Today we make a new beginning. Today man will claim his destiny. Beginning here. Beginning now.” His voice began, calculatedly, to rise. “And each and every one of you has a part to play in that glorious fulfillment. Make no mistake, you are all volunteers in humanity’s greatest undertaking. You will be judged sternly. And traitors will not be tolerated.”

  The people in the crowd exchanged uncertain glances. What was Penser talking about?

  Another minute of resonant generalities and he would have lost control of the situation. But with consummate timing he paused, took a breath, seemed through some trick of posture to grow taller. His face, from where Bram stood, was only a white blob with two black holes bored into it, but somehow the lines of Penser’s body communicated an intensity of purpose as he leaned toward his audience. The crowd, unconsciously, leaned forward to meet him halfway.

  “We have taken possession of the tree,” Penser said.

  There was a moment of astonished silence, then things exploded. Everybody seemed to be talking at once. From the front of the crowd, questions were vainly hurled at the platform.

  “What does he mean?” Marg said. She looked from one face to another. “Orris, what does he mean?”

  “Shh,” Bram said. “He’s not finished.”

  Penser waited out the uproar with folded arms. After a while it died down, br
oken against the rock of his immobility.

  “Guards are posted at all air locks and access ducts in the human sector of the tree. No Nar may enter. We are sealed off.”

  Again there was a hubbub, which died down as Penser raised his hands for silence.

  “The next hours will be crucial. We have ascertained that only a handful of Nar are now present in their sector of the tree, which is situated several miles from here, farther inward along this major branch toward the central trunk. Our sources have given us their number and approximate location.”

  “What does he mean, sources?” Marg demanded petulantly. “Can’t anyone tell me anything?”

  “I’d guess that there are Penserites among the Juxt One colonists,” Bram said. “In fact, it would be surprising if there weren’t. There must have been a certain number of his admirers who made plans to ship out without knowing that their idol was already in passage here. They would have been contacted, told to lie low. Isn’t that so, Kerthin?”

  Kerthin confirmed it with a shrug and a toss of her head. Bram smiled sadly.

  Marg, her voice growing shrill, said, “That’s impossible. I know everybody here. I would have known.”

  Penser paced the platform, his hands clasped behind his back. “In addition,” he said, “there is the Nar docking crew. We don’t have to worry about them for the moment. They have returned to their central station at the trunk, one hundred and fifty miles from here. No vehicle is due to arrive from Lowstation until tomorrow. By that time we will have the leaves unfurled and will be on our way. They are welcome either to abandon ship or to stay aboard for the ride, until their air and water run out. We have the means to shut down the tracheids and resin ducts serving their life-support facilities.”

  A horrified gasp went up from the crowd. “That means killing a part of the trunk,” Orris said grimly. “The tree will seal off the living cambium there with a protective barrier. If the crew can’t get into a habitable zone of the tree from outside …” He trailed off.

  Penser continued to pace. He might have been thinking aloud, except that his voice was pitched like an actor’s to carry.

  “That leaves the Nar operating personnel at various points in the tree. There are no more than twenty of them, performing caretaker services, and we know where their stations are. We will move to gain possession of these control points. We have key people of our own — human beings — who are able to monitor the tree’s functions.”

  He paused. Bram, though he was too far away to see the expression on Penser’s face, could imagine him smiling thinly. “We had seven years to study the problem, you see, on our journey here from Juxt. The Nar crew members were most obliging about showing passengers around and explaining how things worked. Running a tree is not at all complicated. For those metabolic functions where we will initially require some slight assistance, we will retain the Nar technician and persuade him to help us. As for the others, we will dispense with their services.”

  There were shouts from up front, and Penser cocked his head. The questioners sorted themselves out, and Bram heard someone yell: “What do you mean, dispense with their services?”

  Penser raised his hands and quieted everyone down. “We will harm no Nar unless it becomes necessary,” he said. “They will be put in space suits and cast overboard. They may have an uncomfortable time of it, but eventually rescue craft from Lowstation will pick them up.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” Orris said.

  “Neither do I,” Bram agreed. Orris had not seen how ruthless the Penserites could be. Bram had.

  There were more yells from up front. “Where are you taking the tree?” someone demanded.

  Penser was patient. Questions at this point created a certain level of involvement that made it possible for him to stage-manage events the way he wanted them.

  “To a world that will be humanity’s own,” he said affably.

  “There’s no such world! Not close enough, anyway! We’d be old or dead by the time we got there!”

  A man sprang to the base of the platform, shaking his fist. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? To have us bye and breed aboard this tree and sail on into space forever! Never to set foot on a world again!” He appealed to the crowd. “I know these people! They’re fanatics! They make the Resurgists look like Partnerites. They’ll do anything to get away from the Nar!”

  Bram waited for the bullyboys to drag the man away and club him into silence. But Penser was still being expansive. He waved the crowd into silence. “There is such a world, I promise you,” he said. “And you will not have to spend your lifetimes getting there. You will have your new world in no longer than it would have taken you to reach Juxt One.”

  “Where?” the calls came. “Where is it?”

  “It is not time for you to know that,” Penser said. “When the tree is secure, when I can be sure that no one can inform the Nar of our plans, when we have broken loose from planetary orbit and are beyond any danger of interception — then you will all be informed.”

  “Where is it?” Bram asked Kerthin. “Is it a moon in the Juxt system?”

  “N-no,” she said. “He tried that. It all fell apart. That’s why he came here. He didn’t have the right population base, the right conditions to make it work. He’s thought it out very carefully. It’s one of the worlds of the lesser sun. Even without building up to interstellar velocities, we’d be there in less than a year.”

  “It’s not Ilf?” Bram said in amazement. “Ilf’s more heavily populated with Nar even than Juxt One.”

  “No,” Kerthin said. “It’s one of the moons of the gas giant. It’s only a mining world, but it’s already been partially terraformed by the sulfur-and iron-metabolizing mining bacteria it was seeded with. It has a very small Nar population. The human population is even smaller, but it’s mostly bunched together in a couple of settlements. The Nar population is dispersed all over the moon. Penser thinks he can strike quickly before they have time to get organized. He’ll have had months to whip the passengers on this tree into shape, and he’ll have the two human bases on the mining world to work from. He says the key is speed and surprise. He says he can take over before the Nar realize what’s happening.”

  “Kerthin, what is this?” Marg said peevishly. “How do you know about these things?”

  Orris was staring at Kerthin and Bram. Bram set his lips in a grim line and turned back to Kerthin.

  “Penser can’t get away with it,” Bram said. “How many people has he got here? Not much over a thousand, even if he got everybody on the tree to go along with him. How many people on this mining world? Another few hundred? A thousand? He’s got the whole Nar population of Ilf to contend with. To say nothing of the billions of Nar inhabiting the Father World and the other bodies of this primary, only light-hours away. They’ll remove Penser and his gang like a — a plant wart and keep him under hasp and bolt for the rest of his days.”

  Kerthin shook her head stubbornly. “He’s explained it all. By the time the Nar decide to act, it will all be over. There will be a human community on an unimportant little world, threatening nobody. There will be a few thousand Nar prisoners, well treated, who will be allowed to leave in an orderly fashion — provided Penser’s demands are met. Penser will show that he’s willing to be … reasonable.” She bit her lip. “There’ll have been a few deaths and-injuries, of course — that’s inevitable. Both human and Nar. And that will serve as a warning. The Nar won’t want to risk any further … difficulties. Penser says the Nar commonwealth will accept the situation. They’ll let the humans have their one little world. They’ll even help us with food and technical equipment while we’re trying to get on our feet. It will be a problem that is solved. A problem that is over.”

  Bram could recognize Penser’s syntax in what Kerthin was mouthing so earnestly. He shook his head resignedly. “What then?”

  “Penser’s studied the ancient history of Original Man,” Kerthin said, eager to convince hi
m. “Hitler, Napoleon, Alexander. Jones and the neoamerican takeover. Digest each bite before you take the next one. Let your opponents think each nibble is the last — not worth taking action against after the fact. Penser will build up his strength. Attract like-minded human immigrants. Step up the human breeding rate without bothering about gene editing. Reproductive autonomy! Bram, do you realize that the human population of the universe could be doubled in twenty years?”

  “And then?” he prodded.

  Her eyes were shining. “And then, human beings will have a power base. We’ll be ready for the next step. And the step after that. We can grow and expand, always on our own worlds, until we rule the universe for as far as we can reach in a human lifetime!”

  “But the Nar were here first,” Bram said. “Do we share it with them?”

  She scarcely heard him, caught in her secondhand vision. Her eyes strayed past him to the milling crowd up front.

  Marg was fretting. “Look at that! They’re trampling all the seedlings. Isn’t anyone going to stop them?”

  At the center of the great wooden bubble, Penser was still fielding questions but getting tired of it.

  “And what are the Nar going to be doing in the meantime?” demanded someone with a foolhardy edge of scorn in his voice. “Do you really think they’ll be willing to stand by and let a few people with sticks in their hands take a tree away from them?”

  “The Nar won’t be able to do anything about it,” Penser said. “By Tenhour tomorrow we’ll be beyond their reach.”

  “I’ve always gotten along well with my Nar supervisors,” said a querulous middle-aged man who looked like one of the visitors. “I don’t hold with this. I live a pretty good life here. What’s it going to be like on this new world of yours, I ask you?” He licked his lips nervously. “I’m not opposing you, you understand. No, sir. All I’m saying is I want to be sent back to Lowstation.”

  Penser’s voice dripped with scorn. “Who among you is so base as to willingly be a possession of another life form? Perhaps such parasites deserve their chains. And if you’re so worried about your comforts that you’re willing to lick the gullet of a tenfoot for them, then perhaps we can oblige you. We can push you out of an air lock and let you find your own way back to their so-called Father World.”