The Dome in the Forest

by Paul O. Williams

  “A Shumai dog? One of those horses?”

  “She is big, all right, but very gentle. Could you stand a dog around?”

  Ahroe looked at Stel, catching from his expression that he thought it would be amusing. Being so long behind walls, the Pelbar had few pets, and those were small and generally functional, like the message birds that carried word from one city to another.

  “That will keep Hagen busy hunting,” Stel said. “Surely we must have the dog. She will be all right.”

  Tor put his hand on Stel’s shoulder, as the Pelbar squatted down, sketching. “You are good people. I will wait here for him, then bring him to Pelbarigan.” He looked down to where Stel had begun to draw. “That is very good. You have made it just like the real thing. It juts out so much farther this year. Look how the mud has slid from under it. I fear that another wet year like this one and the whole thing will collapse. There is something new, too. That black stain near the dome. I never saw that before. Look. It oozes out of the earth.”

  They looked and saw a stain, appearing viscous and shiny, below the dome. Tor shrugged. “Well, I am not going out there to taste it. So now you have seen it. The rising of the rod. It surely is strange. Are you going today?”

  “Yes. When Stel finishes.”

  “Good-bye for now, then. I must run south and see if the Zar Reef band is coming.” He gave them the farewell gestures and left, his double-headed axe slapping on his right thigh as he ran.

  The room glowed yellow. It was square, lit by a long strip running overhead. Around a long table of worn, painted metal, eight people gathered, thin and slightly hunched, dressed in single garments like body stockings, but looser, mostly dark, charcoal gray. On one wall a large screen marched with arrays of glowing dots. Viewing it, a man, old and dark-skinned, said, “The comps are preparing to raise the wand. We will have time for your report now, Susan, since you insist on it.”

  He looked over at a small, ancient, slightly fierce-looking woman, who sat more hunched than the others.

  “How much of it? It all would take some time.”

  “Just summarize for us. We all know the history.”

  “So you think. Humoring me? Very well, then. I’ll—”

  “Tell me, Susan the Wizened,” said a short, heavyset man with brooding eyes, “why did you take the last name of Ward—and so recently. Are you the warden in this prison? The wizened warden of a hidden prison?”

  “Quiet, Butto, please,” said another woman, young and extremely beautiful. “Let’s get on with it.”

  Susan cleared her throat. Then she laid aside her ancient dulcimer, of real wood, lovingly patched with plastic. Her thin body seemed sturdy, but hung loosely on a skeletal frame. In ancient times she, like Royal, the other old person, would have been called a black. The rest of the principals, who were all gathered in the room, as well as most of the comps, were white.

  “It is all rather sad,” she began. “You must agree not to interrupt.”

  “Yes, we agree,” Royal sighed.

  “Well, then,” said Susan. “Suppose we start with a bit of the official history. Here. I’ll throw it up on the screen.” She touched a series of squares on the table, and a printed text flashed up on the wall:

  After much discussion, the original council arrived at the decision that the proper work-level ratio would be maintained with twenty principals and thirty components. The decision as to which people would become components appeared to be a hard one, since they would be assigned the menial labor of the dome and levels, but a battery of intelligence and adaptability tests was developed, and the top twenty were picked to be the principals. Surprisingly enough, the others agreed fairly cheerfully, knowing as they did that the future of mankind in all probability lay in their hands. They volunteered to be the components and willingly submitted to the necessary drug program to guarantee that their personalities would not vary from the calmness and steady resolve that would be needed to maintain the dome and levels at peak efficiency. This ratio has been carefully and scientifically maintained ever since, and it has produced so smooth an operation that it is proof of the wisdom of the founders, and of their purpose and policies. It is therefore hoped that future generations will also see fit to follow the wisdom of just proportions, and that the geneticists will so plan their operations.

  “I’m sure you are all familiar with that text,” said Susan, drily. “After Royal suggested that I do my independent investigation of our history, in order to keep me out of his way, I found how wrong it is. The more I have looked into this whole question, the more fascinated I have become.”

  “Yes, yes. What did you find?”

  “I have found enough laminated documents and tapes to indicate that a cell of the chief scientists decided privately to lessen the population to fifty. Naturally, they—the chief scientists—were all included. But they carefully calculated the available resources, biological and chemical, and, knowing the pool of recyclable material, including organics currently involved in being humans, they then quietly decided on the right human mix, for race balance, education, and stability, and set about to murder the rest. Apparently it was not easy. They had a good deal of trouble with some unstable, that is, unwilling, types, especially a group led by someone by the name of Sheela Winehimer, who was a lab technician in the original drug-manufacturing facility. At one point there was a sharp fight. The record said it took place on level three, southwest quadrant. I went there and found the evidence in the walls, even though it had been repaired.

  “So we began our history with a mass murder, and—”

  “As man has always done, and always will,” said Butto, shaking his head.

  “You’ve been reading that poet, Jeffers, again,” said another young man, Dexter, with some sarcasm.

  “To continue,” interrupted Susan, mildly, “with another of our myths. The official history has it that the geneticists brought down the size level of the comps immediately. Actually the comps were the same size as the principals for some centuries, and the decision to miniaturize them had its origins in a secret liaison between one geneticist and a comp. This disrupted the rigid social structure and caused a rebellion. Miniaturization was undertaken to insure that this would never again happen.”

  “A liaison? But the comps are sterile males. Surely—”

  “They weren’t always. They were of both sexes, and they cohabited for a long—”

  “Nonsense. Look. The signals from the comps are coming in,” said Zeller, a brown-haired man with a long face.

  An array of lights changed and marched on the screen, forming columns of numbers. All turned to view them.

  “There, then. It is the same. Heavy radiation every way the scanner turns. It is hard to believe. If there were only some way to check it.”

  “We cannot send someone out. None of our protective suits can long sustain anything like that radiation. We cannot sacrifice someone.”

  “Look, though. As usual the separate air intake shows no radiation, in fact less background than usual.”

  “It is the weather, the rain. No dust blows up into the air.”

  Eolyn, the beautiful one, spoke up, in a voice surprisingly deep and full, especially for someone so thin. “Ask for the view-window report, please, Royal. Let us see how the comps read the weather and scene.”

  Royal touched several buttons. A voice came from the ceiling, and at the same time what he said printed in light on the wall: “The view is the same, but the gullies are all deeper. The marker gully has deepened by ninety-seven centimeters since last measure. That to its north approximately 120 centimeters. The glassy surface is crumbling off. Rain is not falling now, but much rain has fallen. The landscape still shows no sign of life. If the slope of the dome erodes like the view slope, then the dome is eroding out.”

  With that last sentence, another young woman, Ruthan, drew in her breath sharply. Eolyn frowned at her slightly.

  “Our danger grows,” said one older man.

&n
bsp; “The dome has lasted and will last. It must last. We may be the last men on the planet. The last life. We must outlast the radiation. The rain will help. It will wash away even the deeply radiated soil.”

  “It never has.”

  “Time for the other reports,” said Royal. “Zeller, give us supply.”

  Zeller touched another square of buttons. As arrays appeared on the screen he intoned, “Algae, normal. Power, normal. Air reconstitution, normal. Organic recycling, normal, except for the very slight seasonal lowering. We must insulate better so that will not recur. Hydroponics, normal. Seed preservation, normal. Tungsten-recovery project, 40 percent. Freon concentration, satisfactory. Presence of unwanted organics, zero. Oil-supply level. . .”

  As Zeller paused, all looked up. They were stunned. Royal raised his hand. “Touch in the numbers again, Zel.”

  Zeller did, but the result was the same. “Perhaps there is a malfunction in the sensors,” Royal remarked.

  “We can test it,” said Zeller. “I will ask for pressure and flow from the upper chamber to the fabric room. It will be easy to return.”

  Zeller sent the commands with rapid fingers.

  On the screen a row of zeroes showed.

  “The lower chamber will tell us,” said Zeller, nervously. “The circuit is separate. Perhaps a malfunction.” Again he touched the numbers. Again a row of zeroes registered on the screen.

  “The ancients,” said Butto, “never intended that tank to last so long. It has given way. We have lost our oil supply.”

  “Internal repair flows have repeatedly been pumped in, though, even as precaution. Every care has been exercised,” said Zeller.

  “Internal repair does not preserve structure,” returned the prophetic Butto. “All breaks down eventually. Outside supply is needed. We are a seed in an impervious shell, eating ourselves. Now even the shell is beginning to crumble. We must grow or die. Better for us to die if we will so devastate the earth again sometime.”

  “You are a poet, Butto,” said a comfortable-looking old man with a shock of white hair. “Your views are broad, interesting, and nontechnical. Zeller, what are the implications—”

  Thornton Cohen-Davies was interrupted, though, by the appearance through the sliding panel of a red-haired girl, thin and slight, with a strange, rapt face. She was waving her arms slowly in the air, moving around the room, making soft barking noises. She circled the table twice, as the council grew more impatient. Then she stopped by Royal, reached over his shoulder, and touched his button panel so rapidly her hands seemed to blur. The screen awoke in a pattern of dots, and as she continued to command the lights, they formed a giant bird, with a long neck and wide body, flying with great wings. The group recoiled in astonishment at so grotesque a creature. Butto suddenly erased the light sketch and muttered, “No one, even an unbalanced child, should be allowed to distort nature so. The birds of the tapes are creatures of perfect beauty—not this terror. Look at the distortion of the mind.”

  Celeste, the child, again reached over Royal’s shoulder, again touched the button panel rapidly. All looked up, and saw her create a sinuous moving V of tiny crosses, and send it across the screen wall. It was followed by another. Celeste’s eyes were enraptured as she watched. Butto again moved to erase, but Royal had blocked his signal. Butto rose and strode from the room with a strangled growl.

  Royal looked at Celeste and said, “My child, put it in memory, and play it to your own screen. We have a serious problem we must discuss. Do you understand? Now go. We must continue.” He rose and gently urged the awkward girl from the room. Zeller continued to test the oil supply on the screen. The lights said there was none. All sat silent.

  “What do you suggest, Zeller?” said Royal.

  “Further inspection, using comps.”

  “Will you lead it?”

  “Of course.”

  “We will finish the council later, at 3300.” They all rose to leave except Cohen-Davies. He sat at his place, then called back the bird creature Celeste had put on the screen and sat musing.

  The full-voiced woman, Eolyn, stopped at the sliding section and watched him. “What, Thor?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I seem to remember something. It is from the destroyed memory programming. What if? . . . Perhaps if I look at this long enough.”

  “Celeste can’t speak, but she surely uses the light array with skill. Perhaps she will be of technical use yet,” said Eolyn.

  “With more skill than any of the rest of us,” the old man replied. Eolyn left him sitting in the yellow light contemplating the great, ungainly bird, flying nobly and slow, across the wall screen, outlined in points of light.

  Outside, Susan, returning to her room, stopped to watch Butto’s back. He seemed more hunched than ever.

  “Butto.”

  He turned. “Not now. You keep adding to my misery, Warden.”

  “Butto. No more drugs now. You don’t need them. You have the strength to face facts.”

  “Are they facts?”

  “Yes, of course. I will show you the data.”

  “No. Never mind. Was that all?”

  “No. That was just a little. But one thing I learned was how dangerous it has been in our past to use too many drugs to control our behavior. You mustn’t.”

  “We always have.”

  “No. Not always. There have always been periods of drugs and periods of character. One of our finest periods, a brief, golden age, came under the leadership of a man who called himself, of all things, Benjamin Jefferson. When he was Chief Principal, we for once composed music that rivaled that of the ancients. We still recite some of the poems of the time, and our only three dome novels come from a four-year period immediately before that era ended. In fact, one novel of which you surely have heard, Curious Rats and Bumptious Foxes, was really spoken by a comp, though he conspired with Jefferson to have it read out by the Chief Principal to give it stature.”

  “A comp? That? A good book. I have listened to it at least three times. What happened?”

  “Well, this is a pretty dull place, you know. The drugs dull us to it. Without them there was some raving boredom, and that resulted in a rebellion of comps. More killing resulted, and a renewal of drugging.”

  “Well, doesn’t that show that drugs are necessary? Man’s destructive tendencies have to be curbed.”

  “Oh, Butto. A case might be made for the notion that the great increase of drug-taking by the ancients, in their last days before the holocaust, might have had something to do with the dreadful urban environments they created for themselves. The drugs served in part to shut out of consciousness the world that they had created. They continued the tradition here. After all, they manufactured some of the drugs. In ancient times, some people even took drugs to wake up or go to sleep.”

  “What’s wrong with that? Isn’t it evidence of man’s superior control over his own awful tendencies? We can’t depend on our moods or the accidental conditions of our miserable bodies.”

  Susan looked at him. “Butto,” she began, but he turned away. She watched him slouch down the hall, then turned to her own far chamber and habitual reclusiveness.

  Butto reached the stair landing and looked back, a deepening frown on his face. He descended to level two and the drug lab, deftly mixing several chemicals on a spoon, while watching the door. Then he suddenly licked the crystals off the spoon, plunged it in the ultrasonic cleaner, racked it, and left. As he continued on down the stairs, he touched out a private code to several comps on his belt communicator.

  Reaching level seven, he picked his way through the storage piles toward a far corner, which he had whimsically called the Room of the Dark Nine, a place unfrequented, supposedly, by any but Butto and his eight favorite comps. He was alone. Quickly shucking off his body suit, he sat naked in the lotus pose, tugging his heavy legs into place. His finger reached out and touched the walls into light and life, playing for the ten thousandth time the tape of jun
gle life before the time of the holocaust. As the drugs took hold, he watched the shadows and movements grow angular. His face drifted into rapture as the purple leaves of understory plants waved. Great insects flew with burring sounds. Small birds, aqua and jade, flitted from leaf to leaf, and the filtering light from above, barely sifting down through the great, hairy, blue-leaved trees, flicked and shaped on the forest floor.

  Butto knew it was time for the snake, the great jewel-backed one with the quadruple tongue, gliding, with its thousand tiny legs, across the ground. Butto loved to watch it slide its bulk across a decaying pink log, resting for a moment on the crumbling curve, as if on another, greater snake, its scales scattering fire in honey droplets, eaten by the scrambling fuschia beetles. Then the snake glided on, at last, the line of its body diminishing, the arrow of its tail tip twinned, each point barbed with light. Yes, the earth before the nuclear war had been beautiful.

  “We do not deserve,” Butto said aloud, “another chance outside. We would do it again. We are loathsome, never lovely like that snake. Even the leaves in hydroponics are green—ugly and mutated.” Once again, Butto intoned the poem of Parker Steinberg, of the fifth generation of the dome and levels, a doleful recounting of man’s evils and the longing for natural peace above ground. As he chanted the hexameter couplets, surrounded by the images of the moving purple leaves, Comp 9 and Comp 11 joined him. They too were naked, and they took up the chant mesmerically with him, repeating the verses over and over. The two comps were only about 130 centimeters tall, and slightly built. Their faces seemed glazed over. Their hands were scarred, and their bland eyes hung in their cheeks like unripe plums, unmoving and docile.

  Zeller ran every check he could think of, and each showed the oil had drained from the tank. Though not as great a catastrophe as the recent fall of a floor, killing sixteen of the fifty making up the population of the dome and levels, this too was a major disaster. The oil had been used sparingly, to synthesize food when necessary, to provide fabrics, to mold the plastics that formed almost everything in the contained culture.