Prisoners of Tomorrow

by James P. Hogan

  Colman remembered what Jay had said about the Chironian custom of going armed outside the settlements, and guessed that it traced back to the days when the Founders had first ventured out of the bases. Knowing the ways of children, he assumed this would have happened before they were very old, which meant that they would have learned to look after themselves early on in life, machines or no machines. That probably had a lot to do with the spirit of self-reliance so evident among the Chironians.

  “How else could it be?” Adam said when Colman asked him about it. “Sure they had to learn how to use a gun. You know what kids are like. The machines couldn’t be everywhere all the time. Ask my mother about it, not me.”

  Kath smiled on the other side of the room. “I was from the first batch to be created. There were a hundred of us. Leon—he’s Adam’s father—was another. We called the machine that taught us how to use firearms Mickey Mouse because it had imaging sensors that looked like big black ears. I shot a daskrend when I was six or maybe less. It came at Leon from under a rock which was why the satellites hadn’t spotted it He’s still got a limp today from that.” She emitted a soft chuckle. “Poor Leon. He reminds me of Lurch.”

  Colman’s eyes widened for a moment as he listened. “I’d never really thought about it,” he admitted. “But I guess, yes . . . it’d have to have been like that. Your kids today don’t seem to have changed all that much either.”

  “How do you mean?” Kath asked.

  Colman shrugged and nodded his head unconsciously in the direction of Bobby and Susie “They’ve got heads on their shoulders, they’ve got confidence in their own thinking, and they trust their own judgments. That’s good.”

  “Well, I’m pleased to hear that at least one Terran thinks so,” Bobby said. “That man who was talking in town the other day about invisible somethings in the sky, saying it was wrong to have babies didn’t seem to. He said we’d suffer forever after we were dead. How can he know? He’s never been dead. It was ridiculous.”

  “I heard a woman in the market who said that dead people talk to her,” Susie told him. “That’s even more ridiculous.”

  “They’re not all like that, are they?” Bobby asked, looking hopefully at Colman.

  “Not all, I guess,” Colman replied with a grin. He turned to Adam and then Kath. “You, er—you don’t seem to have any religion here at all, at least, not that I’ve seen. Is that right?” Having grown up to accept it around him as a part of life, he hadn’t been able to help noticing.

  Adam seemed to think about it for a long time. “No . . .” he said slowly at last. “We’re on our own on a grain of dust somewhere in a gas of galaxies. Inventing guardian angels for company won’t change it. Whether we make it or not is up to us. If we mess it up, the universe out there won’t miss us.” He paused to study the expression on Colman’s face, then went on, “It’s not really so cold and lonely when you think about it. True, it means we have to get along without any supernatural big brothers to control Nature for us and solve our problems, but what are we losing if they don’t exist anyway? On the other hand, we don’t have to fear all the nonsense that gets invented along with them either. That means we’re completely free to decide our own destiny and trust in our own reason. To me that’s not such a bad feeling.”

  Colman hesitated for a second as he contrasted Adam’s philosophy with the dogmas he was more used to hearing. “I, ah—I know a few people who would say that was pretty arrogant,” he ventured.

  “Arrogant?” Adam smiled to himself. “They’re the ones who are so sure they ‘know,’ not me. I’m just making the best interpretation I can of the facts I’ve got.” He thought for a moment longer. “Anyhow, arrogance and pride are not the same thing. I’m proud to be a human being, sure.”

  “They’d tell you modesty was a better virtue too,” Colman said.

  “It is,” Adam agreed readily. “But modesty and self-effacement aren’t the same thing either.”

  Colman looked unconsciously toward Kath for her opinion.

  “If you mean systems of beliefs based, despite their superficial appearances to the contrary, on morbid obsessions with death, hatred, decay, dehumanization, and humiliation, then the answer to your question is no,” she said, looking at Colman. She glanced at her grandchildren. “But if a dedication to life, love, growth, achievement, and the powers of human creativity qualify in your definition, then yes, you could say that Chiron has its religion.”

  * * *

  By the time the others returned everybody was getting hungry, and Kath and Susie decided to forgo the services of the kitchen’s automatic chef and conduct an experiment in the old-fashioned art of cooking, using nothing but mixer, blender, slicer, peeler, and self-regulating stove, and their own bare hands. The result was declared a success by unanimous proclamation, and over the meal the Terrans talked mainly about the more memorable events during the voyage while Kath was curious to learn more about the Mayflower II’s propulsion system in anticipation of the tour that she was scheduled to make with the Chironian delegation. Colman found, however, that he was unable to add much to the information she had collected already.

  Then came the question of what to do with the rest of the evening. “Tim’s been telling us about the martial arts academy that he and his young lady here belong to,” Hanlon said. “It sounds like quite a place. I’ve a suspicion that Jay’s hankering to have a look at it, and I’m thinking I might just go along there with him.”

  “Me?” Jay exclaimed. “I’ll come long, sure, but I thought it was you who couldn’t resist it.”

  “Bret’s an unarmed-combat instructor with the Army,” Tim explained.

  Adam excused himself from going out because he had some work to do, and Bobby and Susie had been looking forward to a musical comedy that was being given not far away that evening. Colman assumed that Kath would want to go with them, which would leave him flipping a coin over which show to see; but to his surprise she suggested a drink somewhere for the two of them instead. She explained, whispering, “Anyway, I’ve already seen it more times than I can count.” So who was he to turn it down? Colman asked himself. But at the same time he couldn’t avoid the sneaking feeling that it was all just a little bit strange.

  Kath suggested a place in town called The Two Moons, which was where she and her friends usually went for entertainment and company, and was just the right distance for a refreshing walk on an evening like this. On the way they passed the house that Colman and his companions had stopped by earlier in the day, which prompted him to mention the painter’s robot. “It looked as if it was learning the trade,” Colman said.

  “Very probably it was,” Kath replied. “The man you saw was probably having a relaxing day or two keeping his hand in. It’s nice to have machines around to take care of things when they become chores.”

  “People don’t worry about being replaced by a chip?”

  “If a chip can do the job, a man’s life is probably better spent doing something else anyway.”

  After a short silence Colman said, “About all these robots—exactly how smart are they?”

  “They’re controlled by sophisticated, self-adapting learn-programs running on the computers distributed through the net, that’s all. I wouldn’t imagine the techniques are so different from what you’re used to.”

  “So they’re not anywhere near intelligent. . . self-aware, anything like that?”

  Kath gave a short laugh. “Of course not . . . but they’re deceptive, aren’t they. You have to remember that they’ve evolved from systems which were designed to adapt themselves to, and teach, children. You project a lot of yourself into what you think they’re saying.”

  “But they seem to have an intuition to make human value judgments,” Colman objected. “They know too much about how people think.”

  Kath laughed again. “Do they? They don’t really, you know. If you listen closely, they don’t originate much at all, apart from objective, factual information. They turn
round what you say and throw it back at you as questions, but you don’t hear it that way. You think they’re telling you something that they’re not.”

  “Catalysts,” Colman said after a few seconds of reflection. “You know, you’re right, now that I think about it. All they do is make you exercise the brains you never knew you had.”

  “You’ve got it,” Kath said lightly. “Isn’t that what teaching children is all about?”

  * * *

  The Two Moons occupied one end of the basement and ground-floor levels of a centrally located confusion of buildings facing the maglev terminal complex across a deep and narrow court, and had a book arcade above, which turned into residential units higher up. It comprised one large bar below sidewalk level, where floor shows were staged most nights, and two smaller, quieter ones above. Kath suggested one of the smaller bars and Colman agreed, permitting himself for the first time the thought that a pleasantly romantic interlude might develop, though why he should be so lucky was something he was far from comprehending. If it happened, he wasn’t going to argue about it.

  Of course, Swyley, Stanislau, Driscoll, and Carson had to be there. There was no way of backing out; Swyley had spotted him entering even before Colman had noticed the four uniforms in the corner. “Small world, chief,” Driscoll remarked with a delighted leer on his face.

  “It is, isn’t it,” Colman agreed dismally.

  Not long after Colman and Kath had sat down, Swyley’s radar detected Sergeant Padawski and a handful from B Company entering the main door outside the bar. They were talking loudly and seemed to be a little the worse for drink. Colman noticed Anita and another girl from Brigade with them, clinging to the soldiers and acting brashly. He shook his head despairingly, but it wasn’t really his business. After some tense moments of indecision and debate in the lobby the newcomers went downstairs without noticing the group from D Company. Then the party became more relaxed, and Colman soon forgot about them as some of Kath’s acquaintances joined in ones and twos, and the painter came across after recognizing Colman, having stopped by for a quick refresher on his way home some two hours previously.

  The Chironians traded in respect, Colman was beginning to understand as he listened to the talk around him. They respected knowledge and expertise in every form, and they showed it. Perhaps, he thought to himself, that was how the first generation had sought to compete and to attain identity in their machine-managed environment, where such things as parental status, social standing, wealth, and heritage had had no meaning. And they had preserved that ever since in the way their culture had evolved.

  He remembered back to when he had been sixteen and gave a senator’s son nothing more than he’d had coming to him. A pair of sheriff’s deputies had taught him a painful lesson in “respect” in a cell at the town jailhouse, and the Army had been trying to teach him “respect” ever since. But that had been Earth-style respect. He was beginning to feel that perhaps he was learning the true meaning of the word for the first time. True respect could only be earned; it couldn’t be extorted. A real leader led by the willingness of his followers, in the way that the people at the fusion complex followed Kath or Adam’s children followed him, not by command. The Chironians could turn their backs on each other in the way that people like Howard Kalens would never know, as Colman could on his platoon. These were his kind of people. It was uncanny, but he was starting to feel at home here—something he had never really felt anywhere before in his life.

  Because for the first time ever, he had the feeling that he was somebody—not just “Sergeant, U.S. Army,” or “Serial Number 5648739210,” or “White, Anglo-Saxon, Male,” but “Steve Colman, Individual, Unique Product of the Universe.”

  It was a nice feeling.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Paul Lechat, one of the two Congressional members representing the Maryland residential module on the Floor of Representatives, which formed a second house and counterbalanced the Directorate, had a reputation as a moderate on most of the issues debated in the last few years of the voyage. Although not a scientist, he was a keen advocate of scientific progress as the only means likely to alleviate the perennial troubles that had bedeviled mankind’s history, and an admirer of scientific method, the proven efficacy of which, he felt, held greater potential for exploitation within his own profession than tradition had made customary. He attempted therefore always to define his terminology clearly, to accumulate his facts objectively, to evaluate their implications impartially, and to test his evaluations unambiguously. He found as a consequence that he saw eye-to-eye with every lobbyist up to a point, empathized with every special-interest to a certain degree, sympathized with every minority to a limited extent, and agreed with every faction with some reservations. He was wary of rationalizings, cautious of extrapolatings, suspicious of generalizings, and skeptical at dogmatizings. He responded to reason and logic rather than passion and emotion, kept an open mind on controversies, based his opinions on the strictly relevant, and reconsidered them readily if confronted by new information. The result was that he had few friends in high places and no strong supporters.

  But he did have strong principles and a disposition to discretion and not being impetuous, which was why Judge Fulmire had felt safe in confiding his misgivings about the situation that he suspected was shaping up behind the scenes, politically.

  Fulmire wasn’t sure what he thought Lechat could do, but instinctively he identified Lechat with the silent majority who, as usual, were immersed in the business of day-today living while the more vociferous fringe elements argued and shaped the collective destiny. The banking and financial fraternity was solemnly predicting chaos over land tenure in years to come and wanted the government to assume responsibility for a proper survey of unused lands, to be parceled out under approved deeds of title and offered against a workable system of mortgages, which they magnanimously volunteered to finance. The manufacturing and materials-industry lobbies agreed with the bankers that a monetary system would have to be imposed to check the “reckless profligacy of inefficiency and waste” and to promote “fair and honest” competition; they disagreed with bankers over the mortgage issue, however, claiming that development land on Chiron had already been deemed up for grabs “by virtue of natural precedent”; they disagreed with each other about prices and tariffs, the manufacturers pushing for deregulation of cheap (i.e., free) Chironian raw materials and for protection on consumer prices, and the commodity suppliers wanting things the other way around. The educational and medical professions were anxious to discharge their obligations to teach the Chironians when they were well and treat them when they were not, but were more anxious for a mechanism to raise the taxes for funding them, while the legal profession pressed for a properly constituted judicial system as a first move, ostensibly to facilitate collecting the taxes. The other groups went along with the taxes as long as each secured better breaks than the others, except the religious leaders, who didn’t care since they would be exempt anyway. But they clashed with the teachers over a move to place ministers in the schools in order to “strangle at its roots the evil and decay which is loose upon this planet,” with the doctors over whether the causes were cultural or spiritual, with the lawyers over the issue of making the Chironian practice of serial, and at times parallel, polygamy and polyandry illegal, and with everybody over the question of “emergency” subsidies for erecting churches. And so it went.

  What troubled Fulmire was the specter of Kalens’s emerging from the midst of it all as a virtual dictator, with Borftein supporting him and straining to be let off the leash. Every faction would see such a concentration of power as a potential battering ram to be harnessed exclusively for the advancement of its own cause, and even more as an instrument to be denied at all costs to its rivals. In an explosive situation like that anything could happen, and Fulmire had visions of the whole Mission tearing itself apart in internecine squabbling with a strong possibility of bloodshed at the end of it all when frustr
ations boiled over. The only force that he could see with any potential for exerting a stabilizing influence was the more moderate consensus as represented by the Mayflower II’s population as a whole; and Lechat, possibly, could provide a means of mobilizing it before things got out of hand.

  Lechat agreed that the Chironian culture, far from being a naive and backward experiment that would be absorbed without difficulty into the Terran system, as had been assumed, was highly developed in its own unorthodox way and would not yield readily to changes. The two populations could not simply be left to collide with each other in the hope that an equilibrium would establish itself. Something, somewhere, would blow up before that happened.

  The Chironians had both complied with the Mayflower II’s advance request for surface accommodation and anticipated their own future needs at the same time by developing Canaveral City and its environs in the direction of Franklin to a greater degree than their own situation then required. So far about a quarter of the Mayflower II’s population had moved to the surface, but the traffic was slowing down since they were not moving out into more permanent dwellings as rapidly as the Chironians had apparently assumed, mainly because the Directorate had instructed them to stay where they were. Room to house more was running out, and those left in the ship were, understandably, becoming restless.

  Lechat told Fulmire that he no longer thought it advisable to attempt setting up a Terran community alongside the totally unfamiliar experience of Franklin—at least, not immediately. The Terrans would need time to readjust, and in the meantime they would cling to their own familiar ways and customs. The proximity of Franklin would only cause tensions. Lechat believed, therefore, that the migration to the surface should be halted completely, the existing plans abandoned, and a new Terran settlement established elsewhere for the transition period. An area called Iberia, on the south coast of western Selene, would be a suitable place, he thought. Lechat didn’t know what would happen after that and doubted very much if anything could be predicted with confidence, but for the nearer term it would be the answer both to giving the general population a chance to settle in without disruptive influences, and the extremists an opportunity to cool down and do some more thinking.