Rite of Passage
by Alexei Panshin
ElectricStory.com, Inc.®
Rite of Passage
by Alexei Panshin
After the destruction of Earth, humanity has established itself precariously among a hundred planets. Between them roam the vast Ships, doling out scientific knowledge in exchange for raw materials. On one of the Ships lives Mia Havero. Belligerent soccer player, intrepid explorer of ventilation shafts, Mia tests all the boundaries of her insulated world. She will soon be tested in turn. At the age of fourteen all Ship children must endure a month unaided in the wilds of a colony world, and although Mia has learned much through formal study, about philosophy, economics, and the business of survival, she will find that her most vital lessons are the ones she must teach herself. Published originally in 1968, Alexei Panshin's Nebula Award-winning classic has lost none of its relevance, with its keen exploration of societal stagnation and the resilience of youth.
RITE OF PASSAGE
Copyright © 1968 by Alexei Panshin. All rights reserved.
Original Publication: Ace Books, 1968.
Ebook edition of Rite of Passage copyright © 2001 by ElectricStory.com, Inc.
ePub ISBN: 978-1-59729-091-3
Kindle ISBN: 978-1-930815-70-4
ElectricStory.com and the ES design are registered trademarks of ElectricStory.com, Inc.
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations, and locales are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously to convey a sense of realism.
Cover art by and copyright © 2001 Cory and Catska Ench.
Original Ebook conversion by ElectricStory.com, Inc.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A portion of Part III appeared in substantially different form in the July 1963 issue of If under the title “Down to the Worlds of Men” and is copyright © 1963 by Galaxy Publishing Co., Inc.
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For Charles and Marsha Brown
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Part I: Getting Unfrozen
Chapter 1
TO BE HONEST, I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO REMEMBER clearly everything that happened to me before and during Trial, so where necessary I’ve filled in with possibilities—lies, if you want.
There is no doubt that I never said things half as smoothly as I set them down here, and probably no one else did either. Some of the incidents are wholly made up. It doesn’t matter, though. Everything here is near enough to what happened, and the important part of this story is not the events so much as the changes that started taking place in me seven years ago. The changes are the things to keep your eye on. Without them, I wouldn’t be studying to be an ordinologist, I wouldn’t be married to the same man, and I wouldn’t even be alive. The changes are given exactly—no lies.
I remember that it was a long time before I started to grow. That was important to me. When I was twelve, I was a little black-haired, black-eyed girl, short, small, and without even the promise of a figure. My friends had started to change while I continued to be the same as I had always been, and I had begun to lose hope. For one thing, according to Daddy I was frozen the way I was. He hit upon that when I was ten, one day when he was in a teasing mood.
“Mia,” he said, “I like you the way you are right now. It would be a real shame if you were to grow up and change.”
I said, “But I want to grow up.”
“No,” Daddy said thoughtfully. “I think I’ll just freeze you the way you are right now.” He waved a hand. “Consider yourself frozen.”
I was so obviously annoyed that Daddy continued to play the game. By the time that I was twelve I was doing my best to ignore it, but it was hard sometimes just because I hadn’t done any real growing since I was ten. I was just as short, just as small, and just as flat. When he started teasing, the only thing I could say was that it simply wasn’t true. After a while, I stopped saying anything.
Just before we left Alfing Quad, I walked in with a black eye. Daddy looked at me and the only thing he said was, “Well, did you win or did you lose?”
“I won,” I said.
“In that case,” Daddy said, “I suppose I won’t have to unfreeze you. Not as long as you can hold your own.”
That was when I was twelve. I didn’t answer because I didn’t have anything to say. And besides, I was mad at Daddy anyway.
Not growing was part of my obvious problem. The other part was that I was standing on a tightrope. I didn’t want to go forward—I didn’t like what I saw there. But I couldn’t go back, either, because I tried that and it didn’t work. And you can’t spend your life on a tightrope. I didn’t know what to do.
There are three major holidays here in the Ship, as well as several minor ones. On August 14, we celebrate the launching of the Ship—last August it was 164 years ago. Then, between December 30 and January 1, we celebrate Year End. Five days of no school, no tutoring, no work. Dinners, decorations hung everywhere, friends visiting, presents, parties. Every fourth year we tack on one more day. These are the two fun holidays.
March 9 is something different. That’s the day that Earth was destroyed and it isn’t the sort of thing you celebrate. It’s just something you remember.
From what I learned in school, population pressure is the ultimate cause of every war. In 2041, there were eight billion people on Earth alone, and nobody even had free room to sneeze. There were not enough houses, not enough schools or teachers, inadequate roads and impossible traffic, natural resources were going or gone, and everybody was a little bit hungry all the time, although nobody was actually starving. Nobody dared to raise his voice because if he did he might disturb a hundred other people, and they had laws and ordinances to bring the point home—it must have been like being in a library with a stuffy librarian twenty-four hours a day. And the population continued to rise. There was a limit to how long all this could go on, and that end was reached 164 years ago.
I’m lucky, I know, even to be alive at all. My great great grandparents were among those who saw it coming and that’s the only reason I’m here.
It wasn’t a case of moving elsewhere in the Solar System. Not only was Earth the only good real estate in the vicinity, but when Earth was destroyed so was every colony in the system. The first of the Great Ships was finished in 2025. One of the eight that were in service as well as two more that were uncompleted went up with everything else in 2041. Between those two years we Ships planted 112 colonies on planets in as many star systems. (There were 112 at the beginning, but a fair number simply failed and at least 7 acted badly and had to be morally disciplined, so around 90 still exist.)
We in the Ships learned our lesson, and though our Ship has only a small, closed population, we won’t degenerate. We won’t become overpopulated, either. We have a safety valve. Within three months of the day you turn fourteen, they take you from the Ship and drop you on one of the colony planets to survive as best you can for thirty days. There are no exceptions and a reasonably high percentage of deat
hs. If you are stupid, foolish, immature, or simply unlucky, you won’t live through the month. If you do come home, you are an adult. My problem was that at twelve I wasn’t afraid to die, but I was afraid to leave the Ship. I couldn’t even face leaving the quad we lived in.
We call that month of survival Trial, and I don’t think there was a day from the time I was eleven that it wasn’t in my thoughts at least once. When I was eleven, a man named Chatterji had a son due to go on Trial, and he had serious doubts that the boy would make it. So he went to a great deal of trouble to try to ease the boy through. He found out where his son was to be dropped and then he coached him on every danger that he knew the planet had to offer. Then, before the boy left, he slipped him a whole range of weapons that are not allowed to be carried on Trial, and he advised him to find a protected spot as soon as he landed and to hole up there for a month, not stirring at all, thinking the boy might have more of a chance that way.
The boy still didn’t make it. He wasn’t very bright. I don’t know how he died—he may not have been able to cope with one of the dangers he knew was there; he may have run into something unexpected; he may accidentally have blown his head off with one of those weapons he wasn’t supposed to have; or he may simply have tripped over his own feet and broken his neck—but he didn’t live to come home.
And Mr. Chatterji was expelled from the Ship. He may have died, too.
This may sound harsh—I can’t judge. It doesn’t really matter whether or not it’s harsh, because it was necessary and I knew that it was necessary long before I was even eleven. At the time, however, this made a great impression on me, and if I had been able to force myself to face things outside the confines of the quad in which I lived I would have rested much easier.
There may have been other reasons, but I suspect that all this is why when Daddy became Chairman of the Ship’s Council he decided that we had to move.
Boys and girls, all of us in the Ship grew up playing soccer. I’m sure I knew how to play by the time I was four or five, and I was certainly kicking the ball around earlier than that. We used to play every chance we got, so it wasn’t surprising that I was playing soccer in the quad yard—Alfing Quad, Fourth Level—when I got word to come home. The yard stretches three floors high and two hundred yards in each direction. There’s a regulation-sized soccer field, green and beautifully kept, in the yard, but some older kids newly come back from their month of Trial and feeling twice as tall because of it had exercised their privileges and taken the field for themselves. We had moved down to the smaller field set up in the far end and were playing there.
In soccer you have a five-man front line, three halfbacks who serve as the first line of defense and who bring the ball up so the forward line can take it and score, two fullbacks who play defense only, and a goalie who guards the nets. It’s a game of constant motion that stops only when a penalty is called or when a ball goes out of bounds or when a score is made, and then stops only for a moment.
I was playing the inside left position on the forward line because I have a strong, left-footed kick. It’s my natural kicking foot.
From midfield, trying to catch my breath after running hard, I watched our goalie dive on a hard boot at the nets. He was up almost instantly, bounced the ball once, then held it and kicked it high and long. The goalies are the only players on the field who are allowed to touch the ball with their hands. The rest of us have to use our heads, elbows, knees, and feet. That’s what makes the game interesting.
Our right halfback knocked the ball down and trapped it with his foot, The instant he had control, he passed the ball over to Mary Carpentier at center halfback and we all started ahead on a rush for the goal.
The ball crisscrossed between our halfbacks running behind us up the field almost as though it had a life of its own, a round brown shape that darted and dodged and leaped in the air, but always was caught and controlled, never quite getting away.
Once the other team intercepted the ball and it went back past midfield, but Jay Widner picked off a bad pass and we began to rush again. Finally Mary Carpentier headed a pass to me when I was in the clear for a moment. I had a step on Venie Morlock, who was playing fullback against me. She was big, but slow. Even having to concentrate on keeping the ball moving in front of me, I was faster than she was. I had a good opening for a shot at the goal when Venie saw she couldn’t get the ball. She swerved into me, gave me a neat hip, and sent me skidding onto my face. I was running full tilt and couldn’t help myself. I went flying and hit hard. My kick went bouncing out-of-bounds wide of the white posts and the net of the goal.
I looked up, sputtering mad. “Soccer is not a contact sport!” I said.
It was like Venie to pull something like that if she saw no other way to keep from losing, and especially to me. We were confirmed old enemies, though I think it was more of a deliberate policy on her part than on mine. Just as I scrambled up from the floor the wall speakers whistled twice for attention.
There were always announcements coming over the speakers. This time they were calling for me. They said, “Mia Havero is wanted at home. Mia Havero is wanted at home.”
Ordinarily Daddy didn’t have me paged and let me come home when I was good and ready. There was a woman named Mrs. Farmer who used to tell Daddy that I was undisciplined, but that wasn’t true. When Daddy did call for me, he only had to call once.
“Time for you to go home,” Venie said. “Run along.”
The immediate flash of anger I had felt when I was skidding along had passed, but I was still smoldering.
“I’m not ready to go yet,” I said. “I have a fresh kick coming.”
“What for?” Venie demanded. “It’s not my fault that you ran into me.”
If it was my own fault that I’d wound up on the ground, I had no reason for complaint. If it was Venie’s fault, then I had a shot at the goal coming on a major penalty. That’s soccer. I guess Venie thought if she denied doing anything long enough and loudly enough somebody would take her seriously.
Mary Carpentier, my best friend, spoke up then. “Oh, come off it, Venie,” she said. “We all saw what happened. Let Mia take her shot so she can go home.”
After some fruitless argument on Venie’s part, everybody agreed I had a free kick coming. I set the ball on the X-mark on the ground in front of the goal.
The goalie was Mrs. Farmer’s son, Peter, who was younger than I and slow enough to be put in the goal. He poised himself with his hands on his knees, and waited. The goal is eight feet high and twenty-four feet wide, and the ball is set down thirty-six feet away. The goalie has a big area to cover but in two quick steps he can reach any ball aimed at the goal. It takes a good shot to get by him.
Both teams stood behind and watched as I backed off a step or two from the ball. After a moment I ran, faked a kick with my good left foot, and put a weak right-footed kick dribbling just past the goalie’s outstretched fingers into the corner of the nets. Then I left.
I dodged into the outside corridor and made straight for my shortcut. I unclipped a wall grate that provided an entrance to the air ducts, lifted it off, and skinnied through the hole into the dark, and then from the inside pulled the grate back into position. That was always the hardest part, clipping the grate in place from inside. I had to stick a finger through, then turn my elbow out and up so my finger could reach the clip, then wiggle the clip until it caught. My fingers just weren’t long enough, so it was always a frustrating moment or two until I succeeded. When I had the grate in place, I turned and walked through the dark with a light steady breeze tickling my cheek. I concentrated on counting the inlets as I passed them.
Changing the Ship from a colony transport into a city was as big a job as turning my mother into an artist—her project ever since I could remember. And they had this much in common: neither was completely successful, so far as I’m concerned. In both cases there were a lot of loose ends dangling that should have been tied into neat square knots.
As an example, the point where our quad left off and the ones on either side began was completely a matter of administration, not walls. The quad itself, and they’re all this way, was a maze of blank walls, blind alleys, endless corridors, and staircases leading in odd directions. This was done on purpose—it keeps people from getting either bored or lazy, and that’s important on a Ship like ours.
In any case, there are very few straight lines, so in order to save yourself distances, you have to know which way to go. In a strange quad it’s quite possible to get lost if you don’t have a guide, and every so often they broadcast a general appeal to be on the lookout for some straying three-year-old.
I was in a hurry to make up lost time when I left the quad yard, so I had gone straight to my shortcut. If the Ship were a person, the air ducts would be the circulatory system. Your blood travels from your heart to your lungs, where it passes off carbon dioxide and picks up oxygen; back to the heart; into the body, where the oxygen is used and carbon dioxide is picked up; and then back to the heart again. The air in the Ship goes through the ducts to the Third Level, where it picks up oxygen; then through the ducts and into the Ship, where the air is breathed; then back into the ducts and down to Engineers, where water and dirt, carbon dioxide, and germs are removed, and a touch of clean water is added. They kick it around a little more, and then they blow it back up to the Third Level.
The ducts moved in straight lines, and walking within them you could move through walls and arrive almost anywhere faster than you could through the halls. Anybody bigger than I was was too big to squeeze through the grate openings—there were larger openings for repairmen, but they were kept locked—and all the other kids I knew were too frightened to follow me, so the shortcut remained my own private route. They all thought I was foolish to go where I did, and for the sake of prestige I liked to pretend that they were right, though they weren’t. As long as you avoided the giant fans you were all right. It was simply that it was people, not things, which frightened me.
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