Wilkinson’s voice rose to a whine. ‘You’d leave me here to die?’
‘If that’s the way you want it.’ Bronsil stood, his mind made up. ‘Come on, Joanna. We can take two of the knives from the kitchen. They’ll be better than clubs.’
Wilkinson followed them into the next room. ‘Look here,’ he was saying desperately, ‘let’s discuss this thing. Let’s find out a bit more before we go. You know, observe through the window and so on. See what’s happening out there.’
‘We’ve observed enough.’ Bronsil opened a drawer and took out two long knives. He made for the door.
‘Wait!’ Wilkinson’s voice was sharp. Bronsil whirled round. The other man had his arm around Joanna from behind; he held a sharp knife to her neck. ‘You go, you go alone, Bronsil. The girl stays with me.’ He was grinning feverishly, an expression of fear and triumph combined. His hand moved upwards over Joanna’s body, caressing, squeezing. A thin trickle of blood showed at her throat where the blade trembled. Her eyes were wide with terror. There was a sharp, startling report. An expression of blank amazement appeared on Wilkinson’s face, then he slid to the floor and lay still.
The doctor stood in the doorway; Bronsil recognised the object in his hand as a gun.
‘Life’s so simple for you, isn’t it, Bronsil ?’ the doctor said bitterly. ‘You don’t have to take decisions. Everything’s mapped out for you. You move safely from one point to the next, gathering impressions, learning, all the time protected from reality.’ His voice shook. ‘Have you ever thought about those poor bastards back in the Community Room, while you’ve been fighting out your cosy little threesome in this cosy little house? Have you ever thought about Marion?’
‘No,’ admitted Bronsil, still staring at the body of Wilkinson.
‘Allow me to inform you that she died yesterday. There are three people left alive there, now. That’s all, three of them, waiting to die, while you enjoy yourself here ... And that’s not all. Do you realise, Bronsil, that you are one of the only nine people left alive out of thousands in this place?’
‘Why blame me for that?’ asked Bronsil, at last concentrating on the doctor’s words, and finding them puzzling.
‘Blame you?’ the doctor shouted; the gun trembled dangerously. ‘I’m congratulating you, you bastard! You’re the sort of man we want! You’re the man who will invent the napalm bomb!’ He was becoming hysterical. ‘You’ve got initiative. And you’ve just forced me to kill the man who might have fathered philosophers, and nurses, and teachers.’ His eyes narrowed suddenly, became cunning. ‘It might have been an accident,’ he murmured. ‘I could have fired two shots at Wilkinson, and hit you with one ... There’s no room for you, Bronsil.’
‘All the room in the world, Doctor, if what you say is true.’ Joanna spoke suddenly; her tone was startlingly adult. ‘And don’t forget that I’m here, a witness. And you wouldn’t shoot me, would you, Doctor? We know that’s something you just couldn’t do.’
The man wrenched his gaze from Bronsil, looked at her, the maniac gleam dying from his eyes. He tried to speak, but failed.
Joanna pursued him remorselessly. ‘I can count, Doctor. Eight people. Three in the Community Room, dying. Bronsil and me. Three more outside. That’s seven. Who is the eighth, Doctor? It’s you, isn’t it? You were the first out of the Scarlet Rooms, the first to go through the mill of this ... place. And you joined up with the Prells, to help them.’
The doctor nodded, dumbly.
Joanna continued. ‘And you had dreams, didn’t you? You were in charge. You could drop hints here and there to help the people you thought might win through. You didn’t do much of that, because I reckon the Prells want us to make it unassisted, for some reason. The only person you helped was me. Why, Doctor?’ She paused, regarding him, but he gave no reply. ‘Because I was the only woman, that’s why. You had a shrewd suspicion Marion wouldn’t make it, yet you tried to fool the Prells, because of your great dream. And what was that dream?’
‘With my willing assistance, you dreamed you would father a new breed of Men out of the disaster of this place.’
The doctor seemed to have forgotten the gun; it hung limply from his fingers. ‘You just don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he muttered. He turned like an automaton and walked slowly to the door, his shoulders bowed against the words which followed him.
‘But you didn’t realise the one important requirement, did you? In order to father Men, you’ve got to be a man yourself!’
Bronsil was watching the young girl’s face as the doctor left; he shuddered inwardly at the contempt he saw there.
They wandered slowly through the forest along a worn track pitted by the passage of countless animals. Around them the trees bulked huge and formless, their upper branches rippling and gesturing in the cool wind. The random appearance of the world about them was eerie; nothing possessed regular shape or position; all was confusion, unexpected sounds, smells; and the strange, unpredictable play of light and shadow as the sun shafted through the rustling leaves.
Colours too; infinitely varying shades of green and brown, with sudden unexpectedly flaming reds and yellows from small flowers beside the path. Glancing upwards, they saw russet animals quick among the branches and glimpses of blue sky beyond the pattern of emerald and brown. What they saw was a beauty which man had not enjoyed for many years, yet it filled them with misgivings.
‘It frightens me, this place,’ said Joanna as they walked.
Bronsil led; she was a few paces behind. He was not frightened. Alert, nervous maybe, but at least reasonably confident of his ability to deal with the unexpected. As he walked he mused on the unpredictability of Joanna’s reactions. In any of the human problems which had arisen over the past months she had shown herself confident and unafraid, in contrast to his own ineptitude. Yet the unknown terrified her; he could still remember her fear in the Community Room, her retreat to the couches and bottles, her longing for the security of her Scarlet Room.
As for himself, these fears and longing had abated over the months. He scarcely thought of retreat; he wanted to go forward, to find out...
It struck him that he and Joanna made a pretty good team.
It was Bronsil who dealt with the large, tawny animal when it dropped from a branch before them, spitting and snarling, while Joanna cowered behind a tree and he knifed it as it sprang.
It was Joanna who took the initiative when they encountered the roving band of three men; she insisted they joined up and eased Bronsil into position as leader of the group.
By day they hunted. At first they carried their kill back to the building and cooked the meat in the kitchen, sleeping indoors. Later they found the door locked, the building barred to them. An attempt to explore the perimeter failed; there were other entrances likewise locked, but the place was too vast for a complete circuit. They gave up and struck off into the forest again, sleeping under the trees and eating their food raw.
They found the doctor on one of their rare excursions to the vicinity of the building. He lay in a clearing. As they approached there was a scuttling and rustling as scavengers retreated. The gun was in his hand; the back of his head was blown out. His eyes had been removed by birds; the sockets stared sightlessly at the sky with an expression of empty surprise, as though at the last instant he had discovered a belated, unexpected truth.
Remembering the incident between Joanna and the doctor, Bronsil expected her to indulge in self-recrimination; he put his arm around her and led her gently away from the distressing scene, muttering awkward words of comfort.
‘It would have happened, whatever,’ she said with surprising calm. ‘He’d done his work. He was a stop-gap, a transition, and he knew it. There was no place for him out here. I expect he tried it, he walked through the door and into the forest, with his stethoscope and his bitterness and he found no use for either. So he died. He needn’t have used the gun. He died in the same way as the people in the Community Room. He wasn’t fitt
ed for progress.’
Bronsil thought. ‘This means we are the only ones left,’ he said slowly.
Beyond the clearing, white through the trees, the vast building extended to infinity.
‘There must be something ... next,’ said Bronsil.
* * * *
Next came to them, without their seeking. The stimuli were completed; they were in their natural element among the trees, predatory animals gifted with intelligence. They hunted, they killed, they ate. The retrogression period undergone in the huge building was ended, the humans had returned to a condition where they could survive without . assistance. In this reversal of evolution, only the fittest had survived ... The cycle began again almost immediately; one of the group had discovered how to make fire and they ate their food cooked, outside a hut made of saplings, leaves and creepers.
Already recollections of the Scarlet Room were fading although occasionally Bronsil thought of the Community Room, Marion and the doctor; but before that ... it was akin to the time of infancy, a memory invoked only by chance associations. One night, as he lay with Joanna in the hut, a stray creeper from the roof brushed his face. He woke with a start, a bitter taste in his mouth, to find himself sucking on the hanging strand. He spat it out, disgusted, and chased an elusive memory for a few moments before sleep came again.
They often spoke of the Justifications in the evening as they sat before the fire, watching the embers collapse into glowing ash and the glow fade to a grey mound drifted by the cool breeze, darkening with night into an indistinct smudge signifying it was time for bed. They remembered the Justifications well; there had been something hypnotic in the presentations on the screen, and often Bronsil felt that the events depicted had actually occurred in his presence. They were more real than the Community Room, for instance. The others felt the same and soon came to discuss the Justifications as exciting events in which they had all, as a group, participated. The evenings were thus frequently spent in speculation and it was agreed that a future had been lost which it was the purpose of the group to recapture. In this way they progressed, working with the primitive tools they possessed to strive for a culture they already knew, experimenting with cookery, leather, simple timber machinery, pottery and other projects.
Bronsil was satisfied that their environment had not, as previously, become a barrier against advancement. The only danger lay in a return to the building and this, it was apparent, the group would not attempt to do. It was tacitly agreed that the building represented stagnation and eventual death; the joy of work and discovery in the forest was too great for them to consider that...
* * * *
He scrambled over the last few yards of loose rock and dust and stood, alone and triumphant, at the summit of the knoll. He turned. Before him lay the forest, the treetops below his level, a carpet of rippling viridescence spreading away to the distant stark white expanse of the building. Even from here he could not determine the extent of the building which curved below the horizon flat roofed; but he knew that the size did not matter; and wheeling round again he contemplated the opposite horizon, where further forest stretched like the future into the mystery of distance.
It was moments before he realised that he was not alone. He heard a noise and moved forward, notching an arrow to his bow, expecting some small ground animal. He descended quietly, treading carefully and trying not to disturb the loose surface. Feeling his way around a jagged rock corner he stopped abruptly, staring.
Before him was a silver dome, instantly recognisable as a photograph from the album of his memory. The door was open, the Prell was watching him.
‘Bronsil,’ It said clearly from the shapeless gap of its mouth.
‘Firstly, I want you to watch this,’ the alien said, setting up a portable Justification screen.
In a laboratory, men and Prells could be seen working together. In the fields, dense green shoots were harvested by giant machines. Areas of the sea were netted off; fat fish swam lazily. Huge mindless beasts, lumps of shapeless flesh, grew even larger as they grazed steadily on lush grass. In the cities, in the countryside, people went about their business joyfully; there were frequent carnivals and the streets glittered with spectacular costumes. Everywhere were the Prells, helping, advising, dealing merciful justice in the courts. The development of science accelerated with the fresh infusion of knowledge; miracles were depicted...
‘Utopia was achieved in a few years,’ the Prell said, switching off the screen. ‘Together, Prell and Man made an invincible partnership; Man’s forcefulness and curiosity complementing the Prell’s gentle inventiveness and scientific knowledge. Things got done, as never before. We had been observing Earth for many centuries and picked the moment for revealing ourselves carefully—the moment when Man, at the summit of his achievements, paused in real danger of destroying himself. We prevented this and we set progress in motion again.’
Bronsil’s feelings were mixed. He understood that he had witnessed another chapter in the history of mankind but was unable to relate it to his present situation. Indeed, he did not particularly care. Justifications were interesting as topics of conversation, but they bore little relationship to real life. ‘It’s only history,’ he said, feeling in some way obliged to reassure the Prell who was obviously wondering how to phrase his explanation of the subsequent disaster. ‘It doesn’t signify.’
‘We are very sorry for what happened,’ said the Prell.
‘You imprisoned us,’ said Bronsil, ‘but you’ve released us. I daresay you had your reasons.’ His mind was on Joanna and the rest of the group; he felt it was time to get back. The curiosity he used to experience in the building had been engendered by inactivity; now there was plenty to do. He was busy. He could not afford the time to listen to all this.
‘All those people who died in the building,’ the Prell continued. ‘Thousands more than you realise. And when we released you, we had to be so ... cruel. Forcing you from circumstance to circumstance, impelling you to learn again all the things you had forgotten ... We could not even confide completely in the doctor. It is not in the nature of the Prell to be unmerciful. It was hard; we wanted to help you, but we could only compel you, stage by stage.’
‘Are there any others, besides my group?’ Bronsil asked.
‘I’m afraid not. You are now in ... I suppose you would call it a game reserve. When you are fully recovered, we will ship you back to Earth, if you wish.’
‘Isn’t this Earth?’ At last Bronsil was startled out of his disinterest.
This is my home world, although you would call it Earth-type. You and your group are the only survivors of a large team of adults and children which arrived several years ago with the object of turning our world into a virile Utopia like Earth, preparatory to further joint conquests. We needed you. We have known space travel for a long time, but we are not... aggressive and dynamic.
‘We constructed a building for you, as similar as possible to such buildings on Earth. Whatever you suggested, we installed. In time, we were puzzled by the further additions you requested and your gradual retreat from a lively communal life to a solitary existence...
‘And we thought you were evolving in some way unknown to us and would presently emerge from your chrysalis transformed. But you did not emerge. Until we had to force you, and then it was too late ...’
‘We did not understand the psychology of your peculiar sexual reproductive system which provides you with that hidden memory of a period of ultimate safety and comfort.’ The alien’s voice grew defensive. ‘How could we, we who reproduce asexually?’
‘How could we know that, for all his toughness, when faced with the ultimate strangeness of permanent living on an alien planet, Man would creep into a pink little egg-shaped room and suck nourishment from a tube ?
‘Man is not suited to the conquest of space; he cannot thrive in alien surroundings. Now, we know that the Prell must advance alone.’
Bronsil had lost interest again; he shrugged, lookin
g at the forest. There was a lot to discover in this new world. It was his world; he had, in a sense, been born here. He muttered a brief farewell and set off down the hill, wondering if the others had made a kill for supper. He was a little worried about Joanna; she had been temperamental lately, demanding strange foods, and she seemed to be putting on weight.
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New Writings in SF 21 - [Anthology] Page 18