While the doctor and the perfectly humanoid robots unloaded the babies, Keith and Carrie started across to the dome-shaped station house. Mark Kamoto spotted them before they had taken ten steps. He ran up to them, waving and hollering.
"Hey!" he yelled. "Welcome to the Underwater Kingdom!"
Four hours and two pots of coffee later, they were still talking full blast, in that inevitable outburst of verbiage which occurs whenever long-separated friends are reunited.
Keith grinned at Mark, who looked thinner and tougher than when he had left Earth three years before. "We'd like to get out and look at it," he said finally.
"We've got some work to do first," Mark said, "so I think we'd better wait until tomorrow. That'll be about eleven Earth-days yet."
"Don't play pioneer and greenhorn with us, old boy," Keith said. "We know how long the night is."
"That's what you think," Mark told him. "You know it on a clock; wait till you Live it!"
By the time the night had come and gone and the gray light of day had rolled around again, Keith was ready to admit that Mark had been right. The ten Earth-days of the Venusian night had been busy and full, and spiced with the exoticism of the truly new.
Still, they were long, long days.
It rained a good fifty per cent of the time—a hard, steady, monotonous rain that drummed into the jungle with unholy steadiness. The clouds glowed with a pale phosphorescence. To a man bom and raised on Earth, the effect was disconcerting. It was as if you somehow slept through every day, and whenever you woke up it was always a cloudlighted midnight, and whenever you went to bed it was midnight still.
With Mark piloting the copter, they took off into the morning fog and soon left the station clearing far behind them. Four babies, comprising the quota for Halaja, shared the back of the cabin.
One of them, a solemn-eyed child with long curls and a pug nose, would be Keith's son until he returned to Earth.
"Look at the birds," Carrie said.
There were thousands of them, as large as hawks and brilliantly colored. They swarmed above the gray-green jungles in plumed squadrons, slanting down occasionally to snare tiny lizard-like reptiles that lived on the broad leaves at the top of the forest. More than anything else, they resembled the aquatic birds over the seas of Earth, diving after fish.
The copter flew due west, in a lane between the swollen mountains of the clouds and the rolling roof of the jungle. Once they passed an open plain, crisscrossed with small streams and dotted with grazing animals. There were many swamps and bogs, but few hills. "Hang on," Mark said.
Venus promptly exhibited her favorite stunt: raining. It got just a trifle darker, and then the sponges of gray clouds began to drip. The copter cut wetly through the downpour, wobbling slightly when it ran into semi-rivers in the sky. There were no high winds, however. There was no lightning and no thunder.
In eight hours they reached Halaja.
From the air, half hidden through a drizzle of rain, the village of Halaja looked like a faded photograph of an ancient frontier fort on Earth. It had no wall around it, but the wooden houses were built in a square around a central plaza, and were interconnected by covered plank passageways. In the center of the plaza was a circular pool, and around the pool was a ring of firepits for cooking. For perhaps two miles in three directions around the village the jungle had been cut back and the land was planted with Sirau-fruit. To the west, there was an open field, and beyond that was the Smoke River, its slow blue water winding lazily through the dense gray-green of the jungle. Several moving figures were visible in the plaza, looking like tiny black ants from the copter's altitude.
Halaja. A place where people lived.
Keith took Carrie's hand.
Mark set the copter down in the damp athletic field to the west of the village.
Side by side, the three of them walked across the field and along a wet path through a patch of Sirau-fruit. Keith carried a baby uncomfortably in his arms while Mark, as an old hand, hauled two of them. Carrie took the small gentleman with the pug nose. The spray of thin raindrops in the air cooled their faces and dripped down the backs of their necks.
"Hey!" came a shout from the village. "Company!"
A cluster of adults came running out to greet them. They were simply dressed in shirts and shorts, with their feet bare. Most of the kids were too young to walk, but two of them toddled out as far as the gate and stared wide-eyed at the procession.
"Looks like old-home week," Keith grinned.
"You won't get many visitors in Halaja," Mark said.
The villagers swarmed around them, all talking at once. They pounded Keith on the back and gravely shook Carrie's hand. The babies were taken away from them, much to Keith's relief, and there was much clucking and laughing and general baby-talk.
Bill and Ruth Knudsen were the only human couple in the village, but if Keith had not known them previously he could never have picked them out. The robot humanoids were virtually perfect imitations.
"Keith!" boomed Bill Knudsen, a big blond in need of a shave. "It's good to see you!"
Ruth, beaming from ear to ear, said: "So glad you decided to come. We've fixed up a room we know you'll like." The delight in her eyes spoke eloquently of her loneliness for another human woman.
They all surged into the village with a whoop and a holler.
Six hours later, Mark took the copter and left.
Their life in Halaja had begun.
It was surprisingly easy to adjust to the life of the village. Different as it was from the fife they had known on Earth, they had been trained in its ways and fitted smoothly into its routine. The Sirau-fruit did not require an inordinate amount of time, and the free hours were filled with games and rituals and the telling of sacred stories—most of which Keith had written himself.
Ceremonialism, in a very real sense, was Halaja's business.
Carrie had named their adopted son Bobby. After two Earth-months in the village, Bobby was almost a year old and growing rapidly. He was probably no more admirable than other small children in Halaja, but Keith and Carrie thought that he was.
One night Keith took the boy to the pool in the center of the plaza. He sat down on a wooden bench and balanced Bobby on his knee.
It had been raining for six Earth-days, but now it had stopped. A cool, sweet breeze blew in from the dripping jungles. The night-glow from the massed clouds in the sky was like soft moonlight, coating the land with warm silver. The perfumes from jungle flowers eddied like streams in the air. Yellow firelight spilled out from across the plaza, and the houses of the village were black shadows under the pale mountains of the clouds.
"Bobby," he said to his son, "we call this pool the Home of the Spirit. Perhaps there are those who would say that no spirit exists, but we know better."
The boy gurgled gleefully, paying no attention.
Keith filled his pipe with one hand and lit it with his lighter. "It won't be many years, Bobby, before you will be meeting other men and women before this pool—mariners from Acosta by the northern sea, industrialists from Wlan, Mepas, and Carin, great hunters from Peuklor, people from far Equete, where space flight is already a dream. You will be dancing with them, and singing with them, and sharing ideas with them. You will be one of the participants from the first generation of men to live on Venus. You will meet the others who are growing up on this world, meet them in peace because that will be your way of life, and together . .. what's that, Bobby?"
Bobby burped genially.
Keith laughed. "You won't understand what I'm saying,
son. Not yet. But one day you will understand. One day—" He felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Getting pretty melodramatic for an old man, aren't you?" asked Carrie, kissing his ear and sitting down at his side.
"Well, I sure wasn't bowling Bobby over with my profundity," Keith admitted. "He's bored."
"Give him a few years, darling."
Keith looked at his wife in the clo
udlight. Her blue eyes were brighter than they had ever been on Earth. Sitting there by him, so small in the night, she was filled with a relaxed happiness that made him feel good just to be around her.
"In a few years Bobby will have a robot for an old man," he said. "I know."
The cool breeze that had swept in after the rains faded to a sluggish warmth. A horde of hungry insects flew into the plaza, intent upon demonstrating the digestibility of human blood. All the people had been injected to keep the pests off, but they were a humming nuisance just the same.
The three of them walked away from the pool under the glowing clouds and went inside.
Eight Earth-months had passed.
Outside, in the plaza surrounding the Home of the Spirit, the drums throbbed rhythmically and a ritual chant filled the air. The robot humanoids were conducting another in the round of sacred ceremonies, while the children of the village crowded around the pool raptly, absorbing the words and music and sentiments that were fast becoming their own.
Inside, in the pleasant center room of their wooden house, Keith and Carrie sat on a barkcloth mat and listened. Across from them were Ruth and Bill Knudsen.
"One thing about being human," Bill said, "you can let the robots do all the work, at least until the kids grow up enough to wonder why we're not out there yelling and stomping with the rest."
"What made you come out here, anyway?" asked Keith.
Bill shrugged. "Ruth tricked me into it."
His wife, a rather plain woman with a deep strength that made her attractive, nodded. "Too many pretty gals back home. I figured Bill was safer here."
Bill and Ruth seldom talked seriously about themselves. Keith wondered whether it was a symptom of the age they lived in, or if men had always been reticent about the things that really counted.
"It's been wonderful having you and Carrie with us," Ruth said. "We'll miss you when you go."
"You may not feel that way four months from now."
"I think we all need a little ceremonial drink," Bill boomed. "This joint is getting maudlin."
Keith turned to Carrie. "What say, high priestess?"
"As long as it's purely ceremonial," Carrie said, "it would seem to be our duty."
"By a strange coincidence," Bill informed them, "I happen to have some good stuff concealed in my quarters."
"Go, boy," Keith said.
Bill ducked through the connecting tunnel, his bare feet thumping on the boards, and returned with a fifth of bourbon. Carrie produced four clay drinking utensils and a pot of water.
They drank up, gratefully. Much as they all loved Halaja and what it stood for, it was still not their village. They were all playing parts, and once in a while it felt good to get away.
From the plaza came the thudding of the drums and the undulating chants of the robot elders of Halaja. The children were very quiet.
'What we need are a few ceremonial toasts," Bill said.
"(:lieck," said Keith.
They drank one to Old Man Vandervort.
They drank one to Earth. They drank a few more on general principles. By the time the fifth was gone, they were all feeling prelly good.
"I guess," Carrie said finally, "that this is as good a time as any to spring the glad tidings."
"Um-m-m," said Keith. "Spring away."
Carrie brushed a strand of her blond hair out of her eyes. 'To be unutterably crude," she said, "I'm pregnant."
Keith found himself on his feet. Suddenly aware that his mouth was open, he closed it and sat down again.
Bill and Ruth laughed their congratulations.
Carrie looked thoroughly pleased with herself.
"We'll have to hurry up and get out of here," Keith said. "Get back to Earth, hospitals—" He stopped, catching the expression on his wife's face.
"Easy does it," Carrie said. "No hot water needed yet."
"Sorry," Keith subsided.
"Darling," she said slowly, "do we have to go back? Do you really want your child to be born on Earth?"
The drums stopped and the singing died to a lonely humming in the plaza by the Home of the Spirit.
Keith smiled. "It's up to you, Carrie," he said. "Its up to you."
IV.
They stayed where they were.
One year later, after their son had been born and named in the naming ceremony of Halaja, Keith got a message from the Old Man. Mark flew it out to him, and it read:
MY DEAR KEITH: IT PAINS ME TO STATE THAT I AM UNHAPPY ABOUT YOUR REPORTS ON OUR PROJECT. I HAVE FOUND THEM SKIMPY AND UNINFOR-
MATIVE. PLEASE MAKE THEM MUCH MORE DETAILED IN THE FUTURE. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT I KNOW EVERYTHING THAT TRANSPIRES IN OUR COLONIES. REPEAT: IMPERATIVE. HOW IS THE CEREMONIAL FRAMEWORK SHAPING UP? ARE THE INDUSTRIES OF WLEN AND MEPAS AND CARIN PROPERLY INTEGRATED WITH THE SPECULATIONS OF THE EQUETE SPACE PHILOSOPHERS? HOW ABOUT THE INDIVIDUALISTIC ATTITUDES OF THE PUEKLOR HUNTERS? I MUST KNOW EVERYTHING. HOW MUCH LONGER WILL YOU STAY? HOW ARE THE ROBOTS WORKING OUT? WHEN WILL THE FIRST DEATHS OCCUR? SOME SLIGHT AGITATION HERE. RUMOR THAT ONE OF OUR SHIPS REPORTED IN TAKE-OFF. RUMOR OF INVESTIGATION. BUT I CAN HANDLE GOVERNMENT. FOUNDATION STILL GOING SMOOTHLY AND MORE CHILDREN ON THE WAY. MUST KNOW COMPLETE RESULTS OF ALL NEW DEVELOPMENTS. UNDERSTAND YOU NOW HAVE SON. PLEASE MAKE ALL REPORTS MORE THOROUGH IN FUTURE. (SIGNED) JAMES MURRAY VANDERVORT.
The message worried Keith, and he did not show it to Carrie. The rather crotchety demands for fuller information were typical enough for Van, but the hints of possible suspicions on the part of the government were disquieting.
Despite the Old Man's power and influence, he did not run Earth. Undynamic as the world government might be, it still could not be ignored.
Peace on Earth had been won at the price of conformity. The era of plenty was founded on a stable system where people thought alike, believed alike, talked alike. The dream of mankind through centuries of war and hate and fear had been achieved. Man had what he had always wanted, and he was in no hurry to change. His motto was simple:
DON'T ROCK THE BOAT.
Well, the Venus colonies were rocking the boat.
They were blowing up a storm.
It was true that they were not exactly illegal; there were no laws against fresh cultures on Venus. No one had ever thought about them—there quite, literally were no legal precedents.
They were outside the law.
But if they were discovered the game was up, Their entire effectiveness depended upon secrecy. The colonies had to have time to grow up and develop and charge their life-ways with life and vigor. They had to contact Earth—not the other way around.
Once, to Keith, it had all been an unusually interesting scientific experiment; nothing more than that. He had not, of course, been worried about the outcome. There was absolutely no danger that the new culures might flower only to bring war back to a peaceful Earth. The colonies were planned so that war was impossible.
The early socioculturists had made a science out of the primitive social disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and economics. The Venus colonies were products of that science.
One thing about a science: it works.
If an engineer knows his business, his bridge does not fall down.
If a socioculturist knows his business, his culture does what he wants it to.
Keith, in a way, had been building a bridge. True, it was a bridge on the grand scale, but still it was a bridge. He had not been too emotionally involved in it.
That was before he had come to Venus.
That was before he had lived in Halaja.
That was before he had known that his own son would have to walk across the bridge he was building.
He did not want anything to happen to that bridge.
And, holding the message in his hand, the old question nagged at his mind. He could see the Old Man as he had last seen him—a flushed, bearded gnome, pad-padding across the rug in his stifling, incredible room, the fanatical blue eyes that peered into th
e dark and shadowed corners—
This was the Old Man's bridge, too.
He was the one who had insisted that it be built, knowing he could not live to see it, or benefit by it. Keith's question came back, insistently: Why?
The years drifted by, and for Keith and Carrie they were supremely happy years.
They raised their two sons—Bobby, the adopted one, and Keith, their own child. They watched them grow, strong and straight, and they never regretted depriving them of Earth. Each child loves the culture into which he is bom, and for Keith and Bobby Halaja was home.
The days were long and filled with work and laughter. The Sirau-fruit flowered in the cleared jungle fields and the great hawklike birds splashed vivid colors across the rolling gray clouds of the sky. In the field by the slow blue water of the Smoke River games were played with the fierce intensity of a World Series on Earth—and, in fact, one of the games played was baseball. It was strange to hear the clean crack of a bat singing through the humid Venusian air-There were expeditions through the jungles, encounters with strange animals, the perfumed smell of tropical flowers.
And always, endlessly, the rituals and ceremonies that were to be Halaja's contribution to the emerging pattern of life on Venus.
There were the great torrential rains that swept through the log houses of the village—rain that drummed on the plank passageways and churned the water in the little circular pool in the center of the plaza. At night, the clouds glowed with the soft silver of an ageless enchantment, and Keith and Carrie knew what it was to fall in love again.
The children grew until they were no longer children.
The robot humanoids began to fade into the background, as they aged before the children's eyes. The first of them was scheduled to die in less than a year.
Earth seemed very far away.
And then, fourteen years after he had first seen the village of Halaja, Keith heard the sound he had been dreading.
There was a sudden jagged scream that split the clouds above his head, a sharp roar that clattered through the gray rain of a long, lazy afternoon. Keith could not see the thing, but he knew what it was.
A spaceship.
Donald A. Wollheim (ed) Page 3