Rite of Passage

by Alexei Panshin

  We dived down the ramp. Jack went left, Jimmy center, and I to the right. We were at the top of a wooded slope and my momentum and the slant put me right where I wanted to be—flat on my face. I rolled behind a tree and looked over to see Jimmy almost hidden by a bush.

  Here, hundreds of miles from where we had been picked up, it was misting under a familiar rolled gray sky. From the other side of the ship and from below there was the sound of gunfire. Our boy was pinned down fifty yards below us among some rocks that wouldn’t have sheltered properly anything larger than the tiny animal I had been feeding earlier in the day. The boy in the rocks was Riggy Allen and he was fighting back. I saw the sighting beam of his sonic pistol slapping out. About thirty feet toward us up the slope was the body of Riggy’s horse. Riggy turned his head and looked at us.

  Riggy’s attackers, the ones that weren’t separated now on the far side of our ship, were dug in behind trees and rocks, at least partly hidden from Riggy, as he was partly hidden from them. From where we were, though, they could be seen more clearly.

  I took all this in in seconds, and then I raised my pistol and fired, aiming at a man firing a rifle. The distance was greater than I had counted on and the shot plowed earth ten feet short, but the man jerked back.

  This was the first time I had fired the pistol. It bucked in my hand and it made a considerable noise. In a sense, there was a certain satisfaction in it, though. A sonic pistol is silent and if you missed the most you could expect was a sere and yellow leaf. This gun made enough noise and impact in your hand that you knew that you were doing something and a miss might raise dirt, or make a whine, or rip a tree—enough to make the steadiest man keep his head down.

  I aimed higher and started to loft my shots in. Jimmy was doing the same thing, and the net effect was enough that the firing at Riggy stopped. Riggy got the idea, stood up and began racing up the hill. Then my gun clicked empty and Jimmy’s firing stopped, too. Jack continued to fire, but except for one burnt arm, the result was less obvious to those being shot at and as our firing stopped, those heads came back up again and took in the situation. They began firing again immediately. Riggy gave a twitch and a hop and went flat behind the body of his horse.

  I reloaded as fast as I could, and then I was firing again. Jimmy started firing, too, and Riggy was up and running again. Then I started thinking clearly and held my fire until Jimmy stopped. The instant he stopped, I started again, a regular squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, not caring whether I hit a thing as long as those heads stayed down.

  As I finished, Jimmy opened again and then Riggy was past us and up the ramp. He went flat in the doorway there and started firing himself. I retreated up the ramp, then Jack, then Jimmy. When Jimmy was inside, I yelled for George to lift the ramp. He was either watching or he heard me, and the ramp lifted smoothly up and locked in place.

  Shots were still coming from the other sides of the ship, so I yelled at Jimmy to go left. I cut through the middle, tripping and practically breaking my neck on one of the chairs.

  In the doorway, I skidded flat on my face again and looked for targets. Then I started firing. The three I was covering for used their heads and slipped aboard one at a time. As the second one came aboard, I heard Jimmy call for his ramp to be raised. My third was Venie Morlock, and as she ran aboard, I couldn’t resist tripping her. I yelled to George.

  Venie glared at me and demanded, “What was that for?” as the ramp swung up.

  “Just making sure you didn’t get shot,” I said, lying.

  A second later, Jack yelled for the last ramp to be raised. My last view of Tintera was of a rain-soaked hillside and men doing their best to kill us, which all seems appropriate somehow.

  Riggy said that he had been completely unhurt by the barrage, but he had a great gash on his arm that was just starting to heal. So much for a turtle policy, at least on Tintera. Riggy said that he had been minding his own business in the woods one day when a Losel jumped out from behind a bush and slashed him. That may sound reasonable to you, but you don’t know Riggy. My opinion is that it was probably the other way around—the Losel was walking along in the woods one day, minding his own business, when Riggy jumped out from behind a bush and scared him. That is the sort of thing that Riggy is inclined to do.

  Riggy said, “Where did you get that gun? Can I see it?”

  I handed it over to him. After a minute of inspection, Riggy said, “You wouldn’t want to trade something for it, would you?”

  I said, “Riggy, you may have it.” I didn’t particularly want it anymore. I knew I would never use it again and it held no fascination for me.

  Only seventeen of us in all came aboard. Twelve didn’t live or trigger their signals. I thought about that on the way back to the Ship. I counted the times I was in some danger of being killed, and I came up with a minimum of five times. If you say the chances of living through any single one of these encounters was nine in ten, the chances of living through five are only six in ten. Fifty-nine in a hundred, actually. If everybody’s experience was like mine, it wasn’t unreasonable that twelve of us should not come back. The trouble was that Att was among the missing twelve.

  When we got to the Ship, people were there to take care of our horses. We went through decontamination quickly and then they led us into the reception room. They had decorations up for Year End on the walls and colored mobiles that twinkled overhead. There was a band and Daddy in his official capacity to welcome the new adults. Daddy shook my hand.

  There were parents waiting. There was Mother and I saw Jimmy’s mother and her husband and his father and his father’s wife. When they saw Jimmy they all waved. And I saw Att’s mother.

  I said to Jimmy, “I’ll see you later.”

  I went to Att’s mother and I said, “I’m sorry, but Att isn’t with us.” I didn’t know how else to say it. I wished I could say it so that it didn’t hurt her, but it hurt me, too, to know that he wasn’t coming back, and it hurt me to tell her. When she hadn’t seen him with us, she must have known. She began to cry and she nodded and touched my shoulder, and then turned away.

  I went over to Mother and she smiled and took my hand. “I’m pleased you came home,” she said, and then she began to cry, and turned her head.

  Daddy came away from giving his congratulations and he hugged me. He put a measuring hand over my head and said, “Mia, I believe you’ve grown some.”

  I nodded, because I thought I had, too. It felt very good to be home.

  Epilogue: Rite of Passage

  Chapter 20

  I’VE ALWAYS RESENTED THE WORD MATURITY, primarily, I think, because it is most often used as a club. If you do something that someone doesn’t like, you lack maturity, regardless of the actual merits of your action. Too, it seems to me that what is most often called maturity is nothing more than disengagement from life. If you meet life squarely, you are likely to make mistakes, do things you wish you hadn’t, say things you wish you could retract or phrase more felicitously, and, in short, fumble your way along. Those “mature” people whose lives are even without a single sour note or a single mistake, who never fumble, manage only at the cost of original thought and original action. They do without the successes as well as the failures. This has never appealed to me and that is another reason I could never accept the common image of maturity that was presented to me.

  It was only after I came back from Trial that I came to a notion of my own as to what maturity consists of. Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with. It is easy now to see the irrelevance of the religious wars of the past, to see that capitalism in itself is not evil, to see that honor is most often a silly thing to kill a man for, to see that national patriotism should have meant nothing in the twenty-first century, to see that a correctly arranged tie has very little to do with true social worth. It is harder to assess as critically the insanities of your own time, especially if you have accepted them un
questioningly for as long as you can remember, for as long as you have been alive. If you never make the attempt, whatever else you are, you are not mature.

  I came to this conclusion after the Ship’s Assembly that was held as a result of our experiences on Tintera. Our experiences were shocking to the Ship, and Tintera seemed like a glimpse of the Pit. The Tinterans were Free Birthers beyond a doubt. (I don’t like that idea even now.) They might be slavers. They had obtained a scoutship by some low method and had intended to use it against us. Finally, they had killed an unprecedented number of our Trial Group. To die on Trial was one thing—to have children assassinated by Mudeaters was another.

  Rumors started to spread almost as soon as we had arrived home. The day after we came home, a Ship’s Council Meeting was held, and thereafter an account of what had actually happened was broadcast through the Ship. To most people, it was worse than the rumors.

  I sat in on the Council meeting and testified, and I could see that every man on the Council was bothered by what we had to say. The Council concluded that a major decision needed to be made, and made with reasonable promptness, so two days later a Ship’s Assembly was called.

  The only adults who were not in the amphitheatre for the Assembly were the few hundred people absolutely required to keep our world running. The seventeen of us who had survived, Mr. Pizarro, and George Fuhonin sat with the Council on the stage at the base of the theatre. I had seen plays performed where I was sitting.

  Daddy called the Assembly to order on the hour, and began by apologizing for interrupting the holiday with serious business.

  “I know, however,” he said, “that most of you have caught the vid discussions of Tintera and realize the serious nature of the problem. We dropped a Trial Group on this planet one month ago. We’ll have them tell you as they told the Council exactly what they saw and experienced. When they have finished, the floor will be open to questions and debate.”

  The audience had previously heard the facts. Now they heard them directly from us. I testified about Free Birth. I told exactly what I had seen. Jack Fernandez-Fragoso testified about the Losels. Jimmy told about the captured scoutship. One by one, we told what we knew, led by Daddy’s questions, and Mr. Pizarro and George added their testimony to ours. When we were done, the questioning started. Mr. Tubman recognized the signal of a little man sitting high in the left banks and put him on screen. The whispering-gallery amplifiers picked up his question.

  “Do I understand that they were using these Losel things as slaves? Is that right?”

  Mr. Persson answered that fairly. “We don’t know that. They were definitely using them as involuntary labor. The question seems to be whether they are intelligent enough to be called slaves. As you heard from Mr. Fernandez-Fragoso, there are some indications that they aren’t. But I think we should bear the possibility in mind.”

  The little man nodded, and Mr. Tubman passed on to another man who had signaled for recognition.

  “Am I right? They actually intended to move against our Ship by force?”

  Mr. Persson said, “That’s not certain, either. It’s another possibility and it was settled by the disabling of the scoutship.”

  The man said, “Barbaric,” half to himself. Then: “I think we ought to offer a vote of thanks to these young people for solving our problem for us.” And he sat down.

  The next person to gain recognition seconded the idea, and my face got hot. I looked at Jimmy and saw that he was embarrassed, too. I wished that they would pass on. I didn’t want any vote of thanks like a stone hung around my neck.

  Mr. Persson said, “I think that’s a fine idea. I call for a vote on the motion.”

  One of the others on the Council raised an objecting hand. He said, “I think that’s getting away from the purpose of this Assembly. If at some other time the idea seems in order, we can take action on it then.”

  There was a great deal of commotion. When everything settled down, Daddy made his ruling.

  “I think we should continue now.”

  Knowing what Daddy had in mind to do in Assembly, I was just as glad not to be thanked.

  The next man to speak said, “I think we’re missing the main point. These people are Free Birthers! That’s the whole question. We all know what that sort of policy leads to. And they’ve proven it again with this scoutship business—who did they murder to get it?—with throwing our youngsters in jail, and all the rest. They’re a menace, and that’s the truth.”

  Mr. Persson started to answer that one, too. “It’s their planet, Mr. Findlay. I wouldn’t want to deny them the right to have laws of trespass. And for the . . .”

  My father cut him off. “I disagree. I think Mr. Findlay has raised a valid issue. It should be considered seriously.”

  There was a lot of noise on this, but since the Council members were the only ones on an open circuit outside the controller’s direction, Mr. Persson and Daddy were the only ones who could be heard clearly. There were, as I well knew, firmly drawn lines here. Under the politesse and apparent impartiality, Daddy was heading straight for a definite purpose with the aid of Mr. Tubman, and Mr. Persson was trying just as hard to turn the Assembly aside.

  When they could be heard, Mr. Persson said, “We’re aware. We are aware of the danger these people present. We are aware. But the question has been settled for the moment. They may be Free Birthers, but still there are no more than a few million of them. They are primitive. They are backward. They have no means by which to do us harm. At worst, they can be contained. Let’s leave the poor devils alone in isolation to work out their own destiny.”

  Daddy said just as doggedly, “I don’t agree!”

  Somebody started yelling for debate then, and it spread, more and more people yelling—this is the fun of Assemblies—and then, finally, they got everything quieted down.

  The man who was recognized by the controller said, “It’s all right for you to sit there and tell us that, Mr. Persson, but can you guarantee that they won’t get another scoutship by whatever way they got their first one? Can you guarantee that?”

  “If the other Ships are warned,” Mr. Persson said, “there won’t be any problem. But the real point is being missed here. The real point is not the damage that this backward planet can do to us. The real point is, what is the reason that there is any possibility of damage being done to us? I maintain that it is because they are backward!”

  “That isn’t the question we are considering,” my father said. “We’re considering a specific case, not general issues. It isn’t pertinent. That’s my ruling.”

  “It is pertinent,” Mr. Persson said. “It couldn’t be more pertinent. This question is larger than you want to admit, Mr. Havero. You’ve been avoiding bringing this question of policy, of basic policy for our Ship, out into the open. I say that now is the time.”

  “You’re out of order.”

  “I am not out of order! I say we should consider the point of general Ship policy. I call for a vote right now to decide whether or not we should consider it. I call for a vote, Mr. Havero.”

  People in the Assembly started yelling again, some calling for a vote and some not. Eventually those calling for a vote got the louder end of it and my father held up a hand.

  “All right,” he said, when it was quiet enough for him to be heard. “A motion has been made and seconded for a vote on the question of consideration of our planetary policy and carried by acclamation. Controller, record the vote.”

  “Thank you,” Mr. Persson said, and punched his vote button.

  I knew that Daddy wanted a vote of no, but I voted yes.

  When everybody had voted, the master board showed “Yes” in green, “No” in red. The vote was 20,283 to 6,614. So we considered the question.

  Mr. Persson said, “As you all know, our past policy has been to hand only as little technical information out to the planets as possible, and then only in return for material considerations. I say this is a mistake. I’ve said
it before in Council meetings and I’ve attempted to bring it up before past Assemblies. In testimony that was made before the Council, Mia Havero stated that part of Tintera’s great hate for us is their feeling that they have been unfairly dealt out of their inheritance to which they have as much a right as we. I can’t say that I really blame them. We had no use for them—they had nothing we felt we could use—and in consequence they live lives of squalor. If there is any blame to assign for the fact that they are Free Birthers, I think it is ours for allowing them to lose contact with the unpleasant facts of history that we know so well. The responsibility was ours and we failed. I don’t believe that we should punish them for our failure.”

  There was a round of applause from the Assembly as he finished. Then my father began to speak.

  “I’m sure you all know that I disagree in every respect with Mr. Persson. First, the responsibility for what these people are—Free Birthers, possibly slavers, certainly attempted murderers—belongs to them, and not to us. They are products of the same history that we are, and if they have forgotten that history, it is not our business to teach it to them. We cannot judge them by what they might have been or by what they should have been. We have to take them for what they are and what they themselves intend to be. They are menaces to us and to every other portion of the present human race. I firmly believe that our only course is to destroy them. If we do not, then and only then will we have grounds to lay blame on ourselves. We in the Ships are in a vulnerable position; we live in an uneasy balance and the least mistake will be our ruin. Tintera is backward today, but even contained, tomorrow it may not be. That is the main fact to remember. A cancer cannot be contained and a planet that does not regulate birth is a cancer. A cancer must be destroyed or it will grow and grow until it destroys its host and itself. Tintera is a cancer. It must be destroyed.