‘Even so—’
‘Shut up and listen. My own story is the pattern of thousands. I was in mild burn range of one of the few nuclear warheads to hit this country and you see the result. I lived because we had a few medical supplies still, and survived because I was an amateur anthropologist with an interest in the aboriginal branch of my family tree. I had studied the tribal methods of survival in one of the world’s harshest lands – I had been writing a book! – and the knowledge was invaluable. I had suffered a few years in the army and knew something of organisation, administration and discipline. In a smallish group, only a hundred or so at the start, I became a leader. Like scores of other groups we had two immediate aims, to produce food and to start up a communication system. Both agriculture and radio I could teach. A few salvaged tools, some scrap-heap generators, fuel from old dumps and steampower when need be, and we were in business. Not in years, Commander, but in months.
‘I think that flying start saved us from apathy. A competent leader could bully out results, and once we began to reduce isolation progress was fast. Government began, not by politicians but by practising human beings working from grass-root necessities and not much hampered by recollection of old systems few of them had properly understood; amateur politicians, playing the game for its own sake, tended to have short lives. Life ceased to be sacred unless it was also useful and that made for willingness and a failure of the grosser hypocrisies; relationships were basic. So you see we had enough to build a sort of backyard civilisation at high speed. People like myself became not kings or presidents but something like arbitrators; by a quirk of language we became after a few years the Corps of Ombudsmen, centres of advice and memory all over the world, linked first by radio and pretty soon by physical transport. We were able to feed ourselves, communicate and govern ourselves by one system or another – and there were dozens of systems. After five or six years we could say we were on our way back.’
He stopped, conscious of climax. Raft nodded without applause. ‘Back to what? Only to what had been lost?’
‘Not only. Probably the most useful single thing the Corps did was to turn the world into a network of teachers. Preserving knowledge was no difficulty; it was everywhere, needing only digging out. Spreading it was what mattered because we hadn’t the material to spare for the printing of millions of books and the creation of technological universities, and we didn’t want to revert to a purely agricultural stage because the road back from that could have been millennia long. So we turned every suitable brain into a teaching mechanism that spent a fair part of its time teaching the young to take over. We developed instructional systems that would have left the last century paralysed with awe, though all the basic techniques were known then. That was a stupidity of our time – the things we knew and didn’t use. By the turn of the millennium we were producing responsible adults at fifteen. Today a kid may take a degree at eleven or twelve and even the backward can be dependable technicians in early teens. In the seventies it was known this could be done. We did it.’
‘And when are they children? Where has youth gone? When does the sap rise in these pre-aged saplings?’
Jackson heard dreariness and thought he detected hunger in a man who had never been young. ‘We take nothing away. Who wants to interfere with puberty and the energies of growing? I spoke only of the inculcation of factual knowledge and logical ability. Social responsibility, sexual philosophy, the purely humanist stabilities can only develop with time and the individual. Discipline of our young is in some ways stricter but of a different order from the old day; mental maturity comes a little earlier but social usefulness much earlier. I can promise you the kids are happy; we may have killed Santa Claus but the private worlds remain and we have learned a great deal about muting the root causes of teenage discontent. You see, this is a social world; God knows how many systems are in operation across the planet, but every one of them is acknowledged as experimental, and anyone can leave his society and choose another without let. But it is also a technological world, and that part of it is most strictly administered. We don’t want a return to yesterday’s excesses.’
‘You mean controlled research?’
‘Only in that inapplicable or unwanted lines of research are discouraged.’
‘What is inapplicable? Sidelines often provide the answers.’
‘Just as the slowed metabolism procedure sprang from research on a useless problem?’
‘Useless or dangerous?’
‘Both. For what is cloning of humans useful?’
Raft’s animus against the whole business of cloning had never considered a favourable argument but he made an uncertain attempt: ‘Preservation of unique talents?’
‘Are there any strictly unique talents?’
‘Maybe not; I suppose that any talent, once understood, can be duplicated by teaching techniques. But there could be multiplication of talents in high demand but short supply – physical talents.’
‘Such as ambidextrous factory workers? Or high-performance physical specimens –’ Raft winced to turn into ditch diggers or soldiers? Who needs them? Our civilisation, yours and mine, would have used them; this one can’t.’ Untrue, untrue; but not so much as the possibility must be allowed to thrive.
Raft protested, ‘On the intellectual side …’
Rising panic was pierced, bringing an irrational calm, by contemplation of Lindley’s fair hair and pale skin against the black uniform, as in one of those old museum portraits where faces glowed out of mysterious chiaroscuro. The thought surfaced that he was an attractive man. Or, at any rate, that he had been, for he was old enough to be her father.
Would age have yet affected his mental and physical powers? Her generation had seen little of middle age, practically nothing of old age – one did not think of the ancient Ombudsmen as being human in quite the same sense as one’s contemporaries – and her ideas about the debilitations of time were vague and mostly inaccurate. Nevertheless he looked appealing and lost, for all that it was only the effect of colour contrast.
Colour! She had known that Lindley had been provided with a Security uniform, as had Raft, had herself signed the notes explaining the provision, but had not until now appreciated its bearing on her actions.
The uniform was a technician’s masterpiece of miniaturised cameras and transceivers; every word spoken here was being recorded in the cellar libraries and would incur routine scrutiny in the morning. In twelve hours it would be known what she had done and the hounds of surveillance would be in full cry. She had made herself an exile.
She had not realised what commitment could mean and could not understand how it had escaped her; she had envisioned, when she visualised at all, some gentle interpenetration of philosophies in which the plans of The Lady became somehow the spiritual guidance of Earth.
In the instant of truth she was homeless and lost, and must remain so until The Lady reigned. Until. She perceived the menacing uncertainty of pie in the sky.
But she was no fool and the education of her generation had been psychologically strengthening; she suppressed new panic by concentrating on the matter in hand, shutting out all else.
Lindley assisted her by coming out of shock as quickly as he had succumbed. A few heavy breaths, a rubbing at his eyes, and he said in nearly normal tones, ‘That was a nasty turn.’ He felt his skull. ‘Did I hit my head?’
‘Yes. You frightened me.’
‘Frightened myself. Can’t think what caused it.’
She offered cautiously, though caution should not now be necessary, ‘Reaction. You’ve had an unusual day.’
‘I’d better be examined. That should have been done for all of us as soon as we landed.’
He was too normal for her comfort, showing none of the signs which betrayed hypno-drugs to the informed eye. She was terrified that the thing might have passed climax and failed. Gathering courage she said firmly, ‘That can wait till morning.’
His reply was so slow that she de
spaired but he said, in a puzzled agreement, ‘Yes, the morning will do.’
‘We’ve no time for it now.’
‘No time? Why not?’
There should be no resistance; almost her drummed-up determination died. She almost shouted, ‘Because I say so.’
That was a test with a vengeance; she had been warned that it was dangerous to be unreasonable, but she was afraid and unpractised.
His smile held. ‘OK.’
She exhaled a long relief and said, ‘Now we’re going out.’
‘We are?’
The persisting puzzlement shook her badly; he should acquiesce and nothing more. She had no idea how long the effect lasted, but surely more than minutes. She tried, with forcefulness struggling through fear, ‘Yes, now! You said you wanted to see our world.’
Persist in planting affirmative ideas, they had told her.
‘I did?’ His frown cleared. ‘Of course. And who more pleasant to see it with?’
The sudden sociability was almost too good, but that was the eeriness of the drug, that the victim concocted instant mental background to justify the role forced on him.
‘Now slick down your hair and do up your collar and get your cap.’
He followed the orders precisely but not with a robot-like activity; he did it jauntily, a man taking in good part the sassiness of a bossy woman. In the depths of his mind the drug was forcing his brain to lie to him, to invent circumstances and attitudes to make sense of what he did. It was abominable, she thought, who had never doubted before.
It was too late for doubt; her road had vanished behind her; there was no way back.
‘Come on, Jim.’
He followed obediently to the lift, answering easily and lightly while she chattered with alarm and tension. She regained confidence as he played smoothly to every cue, and she began to think ahead. Most importantly, the uniform must be defused and she must prepare herself to do it. This was mainly a matter of choosing the right time; he must disappear from electronic view only when pursuit would be too late to catch up with him.
She knew roughly when the time should be.
She set herself to natural behaviour as they emerged into the main lounge on the ground floor. In other circumstances she might have felt distinction in his escort, despite his age, for he had presence and wore the uniform without self-consciousness. They swept through the lounge with flair.
A solitary Tech by the door saluted with a mild wolf whistle. ‘Stepping out, Alice?’
‘On the town, no less, to show a starman the sights of Earth.’
Lindley tucked her arm in his. ‘First night in port. It’s traditional.’
The Tech looked at him without enthusiasm but said, ‘And good luck to you, starman.’
At the front door the electronic sentry buzzed and snapped and demanded to know who was wearing a uniform that did not belong to him. Alice talked to it, explaining to a grille in the wall while her escort watched with amusement.
As they crossed the courtyard she was powerfully aware of the light in the dining-room, like heat on her back. But whatever Jackson and Raft discussed there would not matter much longer. She was visited again by the odd distress, the sensation of wrongdoing at variance with truth. What she did was right.
But she needed reassurance.
‘What intellectual side? More and faster research? With eternity ahead of us do we have to rush fences? In our day the ability to interfere had outstripped the philosophical recognition of need to modify the performance; now we need time to strike a balance. We want to know why a thing is worth doing, if at all, and to have some forecast of the consequences.’
‘No more research for the state-of-the-art’s sake?’
Jackson spread his hands. ‘Who can stop a scientist in full cry? Knowledge increases exponentially and oozes round every clamp; what we can do is guard against unfettered use. In 1990 biology was on the edge of the ability to remake the human race and as a by-product helped to destroy the greater part of it; today’s biologists could remake it – if we let them. That’s one reason they and some others work under close control. Science must remain a tool and nothing more until we discover what we are and where we are going. Stability first, then the big leap forward can have its way. In the meantime no robotic clones, no super-stimulated intellects, no headlong rush into tomorrow.’
‘As Jim might put it: don’t move, don’t breathe, don’t think.’
‘And don’t exaggerate. If we’re wrong, God help us, but for the first time humanity is looking at itself as a unit with a common destiny. We have learned by our mistakes to be bloody careful what we do next.’
‘But in fact you’re at full throttle – the shuttles, those multi-recording uniforms, the references to deep question – and all in forty years from a standing start.’
‘I’ve told you it wasn’t a standing start. Today’s kids begin research while ours were still fumbling with their first erections, and they do it untrammelled by historical attitudes of thought and procedure. There is no private knowledge, no duplication by teams working in ignorance of each other’s programmes. When a particular result is considered necessary we set up the project, define its parameters and give the kids their heads. They have drive, enthusiasm, initiative and a minimum of bureaucratic leash. Side issue discoveries are noted and promoted or filed for future investigation. The desired end is all.’
‘The drawbacks are obvious, but they must be remarkable kids.’
‘Just kids with their potential let loose.’
‘And what about the old people?’
Jackson stiffened as if he had been struck; Raft decided that he had been and pressed the point. ‘Where do the old folk fit in? The ageing and the aged, lost in a world where youngsters run it all – how do they see it?’
‘There aren’t many of those.’
‘It’s noticeable. Where are the people over forty-five? There’s yourself and, I presume, the rest of the Corps of Ombudsmen, but who else?’
Jackson’s answer came with the difficulty of a man exercising care when it is too late. ‘In the nineties, the famine years, they died like flies. Only the fit survived.’
‘Fit? Such as the Ombudsmen, the Old Men of the tribe, the founts of wisdom and experience? That makes some sense. But the others can’t have starved, not all of them. Where are they?’
‘They died.’
‘All?’
Jackson’s face opened and shut like a badly articulated mask. ‘We let them die.’
Raft said nothing; he wanted the whole answer spoken aloud. Jackson spoke rapidly, as if speed could gloss. ‘It was monstrous but we did it. They were wrecked by hunger and disease and they carried the old ideas with them like poison; they were a dead weight on an emerging world; they consumed and they contributed nothing. Their instinct was only for the world they knew, the one that killed itself, whereas we needed to build something new.’
His justification ground to silence.
‘So they lay down and died? Of simple neglect? Your whole holier-than-thou world of youngsters threw off the burden of responsibility in a surge of bright-eyed dedication? Love and duty vanished in a sunburst of practical common sense? Try again. I’ll find out eventually, you know.’
Jackson muttered, ‘Don’t blame the kids. Not much in the way of families existed by then; subsistence groups but not families. The kids had their backs to the wall.’
‘So, in world-wide agreement …?’
‘It was essential. For survival. To free the kids for the things they needed to do.’ His hand fluttered once, hopelessly. ‘We – the Corps of Ombudsmen – advised it.’ His eyes pleaded for an impossible pity.
At the time, Raft thought, they had probably believed in what they did; should a man be punished for actions committed in desperation and hysteria? But can an abominable precedent pass unscathed? After forty years the damage was irreversible and what a homing starman thought would stir no ripples in a society wherein he was only a cu
riosity. He said, because something must be said before the disgraceful question was set aside, ‘I’m glad I’m not one of the benevolent and beloved Corps of Old Killers. How, just how, do you stay alive?’ No answer to that. ‘I suppose you created Security too? After a cool, idealistic act of genocide you’d have to, wouldn’t you? To keep the world, all of it, flat out busy creating paradise to justify what you had caused it to do.’
Jackson nodded tightly, with some anger returning.
‘And when your usefulness ends, when your ability to advise on ancient problems runs out, will they just let you die? Because they can’t afford you any longer, old carcase?’
‘Yes.’
‘How right, but too late. I don’t know what you have created out of murder but I hope for the peace of your soul that it’s good.’
Jackson produced defiance. ‘What else do you think drives us to keep on? But what’s this world to you, Commander? More to the point, what are you to it? What use are you? Who needs star pilots? Nobody, nobody, battens on the public weal.’
Raft laughed at him. ‘I’m safe. You need me, mister; you didn’t bring me here for history and a friendly steak.’
‘Not entirely, but it was better for you to get the history from me in a beastly lump than pick it up in fragments. My version is more accurate than most you’ll get. I am history.’
‘And you wanted what else?’
‘To tell you what I know of the situation with the clone and whatever inspires it. Ian wanted no action taken against the few we detected, but there was one in Melbourne Town, so I had him questioned. That was against Security instruction and I will have to answer for it, and what I obtained was not much. First, Heathcote is alive. How old would he be?’
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