The Chromosome Game

by Hodder-Williams, Christopher

  But there was more to it than that.

  When the final computer predictions had been completed immediately prior to the commissioning of Kasiga herself, one vital issue had to be settled as a necessary adjunct of the colossal preparations that went into the constructing and equipping of Deck ZD-One. So much so, that a colleague of Huckman and Ricardo was put in charge of a sub-project which involved not only an entire hook-up of universities but the products of at least three major computer companies: Univac, Honeywell and IBM.

  The requirement (Budget: $20M.) was to predict the cumulative effect of world nuclear explosions, together with the resulting land-breaks and tidal waves, upon the likely path taken by Kasiga over a period of three hundred years.

  It says something for Twentieth Century technology that provided with a substantial research budget they got their sums right.

  At the launch, Ricardo knew that Kasiga would wind up just beyond the main runway of Nice Airport; he knew that the Gibraltar Straits would succumb to quite unarguable tonnages of Atlantic water; he knew that the Nile Delta would be cleansed of its crocodiles and ripped apart; and he knew that, in consequence, the altered stresses in Africa would widen the Rift Valley, slice like so much cheese-wire through Suez, and absolutely ruin the hotels sur la plage of the Côte d’Azur.

  All of which was very clever of him.

  It must be admitted that the P.E.A.C.E. people had their brains working in good order, if not their souls. For it would have been catastrophic to the concept of Futureworld had Kasiga got stuck in the middle of an ocean, or beached on some unhelpful expanse of desert where even the spiders had their work cut out to obtain their minimal resources. The professors of the Computer Age were not technically certifiable therefore, when they made absolutely certain that Sonar, thrusters and hydroplanes together worked in unison to optimize on the new regime of tidal forces that were to prevail — Gulf Stream included — once all the damage had been done.

  However, nobody’s perfect. And apart from the nursery accident that occurred during the early unbringing of Scorda-099 (this will be brought to light) there was another far more serious blunder.

  Nobody among the guardians of the Universe Control System has failed to notice by now that a depressing degree of cynicism went hand in hand with the Futureworld Project. Indeed, in their humble opinion Ricardo was an inadequate individual with half-baked ideas; Huckman was a race-prejudiced near-Nazi; and the total output of altruism emanating from their colleagues could comfortably have been accommodated within a microdot.

  Futureworld was accordingly sired with an impoverished sense of dedication.

  It didn’t strike even one of the experts that more than fifty per-cent of the embryos in any such experiment could possibly survive.

  The Interrogod lowered his copy of the Celestial Times for a moment and addressed the Attorney-General, Andromeda, across the clubroom. ‘You reading today’s Editorial?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘I was just wondering: Is there no way in which a journalist can be persuaded to write without all this rancour? I fail to see what good it can do anyone now.’

  His colleague from the judiciary said, ‘I think it’ll mean something to people like Hawkridge. Watching all those helpless women and children starving to death couldn’t have been very pleasant.’

  The Interrogod considered this. ‘Possibly. But to embitter Earth-ghosts at this late date is a bit like making a tardy splash with yesterday’s news.’

  The Attorney-General flipped the page over in order to finish reading the article. ‘I think it needs saying. Don’t forget there was no one alive at that time to say it. Once a journalist, always a journalist. And whoever wrote this leader still feels very strongly about it.’ He read on:

  *

  ‘In the event, the number of stillborn, out of a total supply of two hundred pre-incubants, proved precisely two. There were one hundred and ninety-eight surviving infants on Deck ZD-One, only four of whom later perished by the time the batch had reached the age of twelve (one through peritonitis because the auto-nurses were late in identifying appendicitis to the computer; and three from tuberculosis — rare in the Twentieth Century but latently threatening by the time autocoitus took place).

  Thus, food supplies computed to provide for one hundred survivors were critically sparse.

  Thus, though the positioning of Kasiga was right, the timing of the official use of the can-opener to release these people for shore-based replenishment was wrong.

  Thus, anxiety was felt, especially and initially by the more selfish of the incubants, regarding just what the hell was supposed to happen once the goodies ran out.

  High on the list of incubants conscious of this terrifying thought was Scorda-099.

  The muddle over Scorda’s identity was — so to speak — the result of a railway accident. When reduced to essentials, it can be traced to an incorrect setting of one of the monorail tracks on which Auto-nurse ZD/1/41 ran suspended. Due to a single incorrect digit input to the computer from Tape Deck 04 — possibly there was dirt on the playback head a wrongly-set junction conveyed the auto-nurse to Scorda’s incubator whilst the computer thought it was administering to the female in the adjacent hotbox.

  It might be reasonable to expect a split-personality in the resulting adolescent if the name of the game is splitting hairs.

  An alternative conclusion to draw is that Scorda had all the makings of a nasty piece of work.

  This didn’t really show — at first.’

  *

  The Videotape Engineer had also read the piece and found himself as irritated as the Interrogod. In fact his first instinct was to edit-out Scorda altogether — until, on playing through some of the later tapes, he realised this would be akin to erasing Bud Abbot and favouring Lou Costello. For in the later tapes — all of them now safely copied onto brand new stock — it became clear that Scorda was Straight Man to another’s Comic. Scorda, had he not found a more sanguine (if rancid) individual to whom he could play parasite, would have remained a total nonentity. Yet he was to aspire — like a whore who suddenly smells money — to the favours of Sladey. In combination, these two would prove as toxic as the lacing of a flask of sodium with putrid water … the outcome is inflammable.

  So the Engineer selected the clips dangling in the bins and deftly edited a version which he judged would place Scorda in perspective.

  Now, just to test it out, he ran the tape through and gauged the outcome on the monitor screen.

  *

  Trell finished a session on the Teaching Machine in Cubicle B and decided he’d earned his weekly Special. He thought of inviting Kelda along; but he figured, Kelda wants time to think things over, don’t want to press any issues, the more in love I get the more it shows, and she’s been very absorbed lately, working like crazy at the violin-hours of it, all that practice! And she’s getting good, not a shadow of doubt about that, double-stopping right up the fingerboard at fourteen, why, she’s streets ahead of the others …

  He sauntered into the Recreation Area, looking but not really seeing. It was a busy scene, but it had gone through further change since the swings-and-roundabout days. Kids’ toys had gone; stowed away on the instructions of the Controlling Computer. Now, there was a netted-in alleyway for pitching and catching; you could master the basics of baseball if you felt like it, but Trell didn’t much like the ball-game clique … Handem and Gendabrig and Flek, a bit goonish in his opinion, they spent a lot of time in the practice nets, much less time in the cubicles. Trell thought, they act tough, but you never see them on their own, wonder why? … Sometimes Scorda joined them, but they didn’t really want Scorda, he pitched too well and too accurately — to be honest, he looked a bit vicious doing it sometimes, aiming a bit low with that ball.

  Cass and Hallow were playing chess, over near the Disco Section. They seemed totally absorbed — till the twins, swinging their squash racquets and wiggling their backsides for Hallow’s benefit, promenaded
toward the changing rooms. Cass — now perfectly fit on insulin — didn’t look up from the board. Hallow, lanky and palefaced, innately monosyllabic, tried not to look at the twins. But Inikas swished her racquet almost in front of Hallow’s nose.

  ‘Hi. Losing again?’

  ‘Course. Look who I’m playing.’

  Sakini said, ‘Move the horse.’

  Hallow said, ‘It’s a knight.’

  Without looking up Cass murmured, ‘You mean, was,’ and took it with his bishop.

  Hallow said, ‘What can you do?’

  Sakini said, ‘You’ll think of something — eventually.’

  The twins laughed in unison and went on their way.

  Krand was in the Flight Simulator.

  Except for his hands, which made small movements on the controls, he was motionless, erect. His eyes were alert, though, flickering up at the big television screen, which showed a runway getting nearer to him, then seeming to come at him faster as he eased back. Then the eyes flicked down, a quick view of the instruments, AOK, easy does it, baby … Now, don’t bounce!

  Whenever there was spare computer-time, enough room in mainstore for all that complex software, you’d find Krand, absorbed in his imaginary flights as was Cass in chessplay.

  Trell hoiked himself onto a bar stool next to Eagle. ‘How did you make out,’ he asked, ‘with your Computalk?’

  At fourteen, Eagle’s face had tautened. There was a firmness of aim there; an imprint of calm determination belied by a tremor of a smile. ‘I think,’ he said, staring into a freshly dispensed Special, ‘that the Controller and I understand each other.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I seem to make it feel uneasy.’

  ‘You’re too forthright.’

  ‘I have nothing to hide.’

  Trell said, ‘Maybe the Computer has.’

  ‘It’s unscientific,’ said Eagle, ‘to assume things in advance.’

  ‘Nembrak does.’

  ‘Nembrak is an inventor — not a scientist. There’s a difference. Inventing, you see, is almost the opposite of Science. Because when you’re inventing things you start off with a preconceived idea, then try and make it work. In Science, you start off with an open mind and, by degrees, reach conclusions based on something’s behaviour. When I used to make things out of Lego bricks, you know, I never worked out what the finished gadget would do. Usually it wouldn’t do anything —’

  ‘— Like the famous Super-Bulldozificator.’

  ‘You remember that, after all this time?’

  ‘It was the day of the Tractor.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What are you working on now, Eagle?’

  ‘I’m reading up Einstein.’

  ‘Do you understand it?’

  ‘I realise,’ said Eagle sagely, ‘that it is directly to do with us.’

  ‘Us? How do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. But I’m going to find out.’

  ‘You really mean it, don’t you?’

  Eagle deflected this. ‘I’ve been examining the letters we get from our parents.’

  Trell said, ‘I can’t understand why they don’t come and see us. I only know them through the letters we get back.’

  ‘The reason,’ said Eagle dispassionately, ‘that they don’t come and see us is connected with the fact that the letters don’t come from our parents in any case.’

  ‘What the heck are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying the Computer writes them.’

  You’re kidding.’

  ‘The Computer writes them because it has a graph plotter. You know what a graph plotter does?’

  ‘It draws graphs.’

  ‘Which means it can write … A different handwriting for each of us. Different style and carefully chosen phrases that fit the letters we think we’re writing to our folks.’

  ‘Where are our folks, Eagle?’

  Eagle’s eyes changed focus. ‘A long, long, way away.’

  ‘Can you explain what you mean by that?’

  ‘Not yet. I shall one day. Some of the letters written by the Computer are angled. You must have noticed.’

  Yes.’ Trell took a crumpled letter out of his pocket. ‘A lot of the letters try and make out that the black guys around here aren’t real people. The girls, too. Helen — the one who goes around with Krand — she’s not real, according to the Controller.’

  Eagle gave a curt nod. ‘But Krand knows she is. Just as real as your girl Kelda.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘No “of course” about it. If people get letters from their parents they believe what their parents say.’

  ‘Even something like that?’

  ‘Yes, if they had no other adult’s word to go on.’

  Trell said, ‘Then what about you, Eagle? You must have got faked letters. So why didn’t you —’

  ‘— I knew they were faked.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’re going to be embarrassed.’

  ‘Risk it.’

  ‘Trell, I’ve always felt a kind of warmth coming from somewhere — a personal thing, close to me, yet at the same time far away. I knew my dad couldn’t be writing things like … well, you know what’s in the letters. I’ll tell you something: You and Kelda are growing up faster than any of us.’

  ‘I think Kelda and I love each other. Isn’t that incredible?’

  ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that you always did? — which was why you didn’t get influenced by all that crap churned out by a mechanical pen?’

  ‘You know what? — I can’t figure you out, Eagle. You have some kind of close relationship with your folks, even though they’re not around. I don’t feel that way.’

  ‘You don’t have to. Do you?’

  ‘You know what Kelda says, about you? — She says that you’re the only one that’s had a regular childhood, and she says you’re growing up at a speed that’s kind of natural.’

  Eagle grinned. ‘There’s not much that’s unnatural about you and Kelda!’

  ‘But you do know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes. Yes I do.’

  ‘Your eyes kind of glow when you say things like that. I guess that must sound embarrassing.’

  Eagle said, ‘I don’t see that either of us have anything to be embarrassed about. I’ve seen your eyes “glow” as you call it, whenever Kelda glows back!’

  ‘I don’t know whether to think of you as an uncle or a nephew or what, Eagle! But you’re different, that’s for sure.’

  Eagle said, ‘Listen. If I’m an uncle and a nephew at the same time I’ll tell you what I think: You know what I was really doing while I was playing around with those bits of Lego?’

  ‘Really you were thinking.’

  ‘Right. I was assembling a model. A puzzle. Except I didn’t know I was doing it.’

  ‘A model of what?’

  ‘This community.’

  ‘I don’t see how you can model a community with a load of Lego bricks.’

  ‘That’s just it — I couldn’t. Something doesn’t fit. And you know what’s missing? — A leader. We need a leader. Trell. We’re all the same age. There’s no one to keep us united. We just have a computer that writes phoney letters. What else does it do that we don’t even know about? Those letters are sheer detonators for violence.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And it runs underneath all sorts of things, Trell. Already some of the blacks are getting a bad time.’

  ‘Okay. I agree. So who leads?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You mustn’t mind what I’m going to say next.’

  ‘Okay. Say it.’

  ‘You and Kelda are soon going to be a couple of adults.’

  ‘I don’t mind your saying that but I think the leader should be either you or Krand.’

  ‘No. He and I are Specialists. Haven’t you noticed how a lot of us are starting to specialise? Take me. My interest is pure science. You
don’t put a scientist in charge of people unless you’re raving mad. Then Krand. Well, he’s a philosopher —’

  ‘— Aren’t you?’

  Eagle said airily, ‘Oh, they cross over. But Science and Philosophy take a long time to … to —’

  ‘— to converge.’

  ‘Yes. That’s the word. Converge.’

  ‘You always write words down like that?’

  ‘If I don’t know them, yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think you and Kelda will arrive at that in your own way. I have a feeling you might have already.’

  Trell ducked this but went on, ‘Tell me more about the Specialists.’

  ‘You know most of them. Nembrak and his crowd — they invent things. That’s going to come in useful. Then Cass. He specialises in logic. It’s useful but it doesn’t cover everything.’

  ‘You mean, like it doesn’t cover the Law of Relativity?’

  ‘Like several things. It’s too slow. But I watch his chess moves. Better than Hallow’s.’

  Trell grinned. ‘That’s because Hallow ‘specialises’ in the twins!’

  Eagle didn’t follow this up. ‘If you look behind you you’ll see some Baseball specialists in the nets.’

  ‘I don’t care much for those guys.’

  ‘We have to accept them. Yet they don’t accept Scorda.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘You’d better ask Krand that.’

  Trell glanced at the Flight Simulator. ‘He’s about thirty thousand feet in the sky right now.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘He thinks he is, anyway,’

  ‘All the same, ask him sometime. The left hand side of the cockpit gives him rather a good view.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of the individual who’s sauntering over towards us now, for instance. The one with no eyebrows.’

  Trell said, ‘Have you made up your mind about that guy too? — You mean Sladey, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve made up my mind.’

  ‘What’s it tell you?’

  ‘I think he’s like a fluorescope. One day we’ll both be able to see right through him.’