Exiled to the Stars

by Zellmann, William

  Cesar was adamant that every man, woman and child in the dorm become educated to his or her capacity. When a delegation of the older men objected to this requirement, Cesar became angry, or, Ron thought, appeared to become angry.

  "Are you fools?" He began. "If we find a planet and start a colony, will you be content to be mere peasants, waiting to be told to go here and do that? No! The westerners call us 'Drones'. In this dorm we will not be drones! Our people will be equal partners in this adventure, not dumb beasts of burden. It is you who must inspire the young! By the time we find a planet, I expect each of you to possess at least a baccalaureate degree or its equivalent in skills training, and if the trip takes long enough, a Masters degree."

  When one of the men protested that he could not read or write, Cesar was not impressed. "Neither can your one-year-old grandson," he replied. "Both of you will learn. And I suspect that most of you will come to love learning. Ernesto Cansado, how many times have I seen you watch an artisan at work and say, 'I wish I could learn to do that'? Well, now you can. What else will you do? Sit on your bunks and whine about being sent off into space? Will you shame your family by being the only one who cannot read? Pah! Go away from me, lazy ones. Go! Whine in your bunks about the unfairness of life!"

  With fifty terminals and two hundred residents, scheduling became a major project. Ron, Vlad and Susan spent many hours in the mess room hunched over their small tablets.

  Nearly every educated person in United Earth had a tablet. They were sold at EarthGov-subsidized discounts to students beginning in elementary school. By the time they completed high school, most people considered a good tablet almost as a necessary item of clothing.

  Susan, they learned, had been very lucky. She had brought nothing but a torn shipsuit from their previous dorm. Actually, they’d had a difficult time finding a shipsuit that would fit so tall a woman. They finally used one of Vlad's, suitably altered by one of the dorm's women while hers was repaired. The woman had discovered Susan's tablet in the breast pocket.

  It seemed that when her assailant grabbed for a breast, he had grabbed her tablet through the cloth, and torn the shipsuit when she pulled away. Susan was delighted. Her tablet was a top-of the line model, with extra memory and dozens of features missing in the more common models. Once it was found, she practically cuddled it. Vlad teased her about going to bed with it, and Ron swore he heard her crooning softly to it.

  Their discussions were often interrupted for meals, and it was after lunch the next day when Ron came out of the messroom to find himself facing four men in the red shipsuits that identified Crew Security waiting for him. All four had stunners in holsters.

  One of them stepped forward. "Mr. Creding, please come with us."

  Cesar stepped up. "What is this about?" He demanded.

  The man shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "I was just told to bring Mr. Creding to the Captain."

  Ron froze. The Captain! What could the Captain possibly want with Ron Creding? In fact, how did the Captain even know Ron existed? He looked at Cesar, who nodded with a worried expression. "You'd better go, Ron," was all he said.

  Ron took a deep breath, and then nodded to the men. They led him off toward a service corridor.

  Ron tried to keep track of their course, but that proved futile as soon as they encountered an elevator activated by retinal scan. Finally, they stopped in front of a door with a simple brass plaque that said "CAPTAIN" in inch-high letters. The leader knocked, and at a muffled, "Come in," opened the door and ushered Ron into a small, cluttered office. "Messer Creding, Captain." The leader announced, before backing out and closing the door behind him.

  Ron's first impression of the Captain was how young the man was. He appeared to be in his late twenties. He was swarthy and dark-haired, apparently of Mediterranean descent. A small plaque on his desk read "Captain R. W. Angelo." It was the first time Ron had seen the Captain's name.

  The Captain looked at Ron with a stony expression, but he swept a hand to indicate that Ron should take a seat. They stared at each other in silence for a long moment. Finally the Captain spoke.

  "All right, Creding," he said harshly. "We're still in EarthGov space, and we enter jump in six hours. I should be on the bridge right now. I don't have time for this, but I'm having to make time to deal with you."

  Ron blinked. Deal with him? What did that mean? He started to reply, but simply didn't know what to say.

  The Captain picked up a stylus on his desk and began toying with it. "Now," he said stonily. "I want to know why you were trying to obtain a schematic of the ship. What were you planning, and why should I bother trying to find out instead of just having you executed?"

  Ron's eyes widened and he felt a sudden chill. Executed? Just for asking about a schematic? "Captain!" he replied desperately, "I just asked out of curiosity. I wasn't planning to do anything!"

  The Captain shook his head. "No. You were declared 'Undesirable' for political reasons. You almost immediately swapped to a Drone dorm. You were only the third colonist to access the computer, and within a few minutes, you were asking for a schematic. Once more, what were you going to do with it?"

  Ron was terrified. This man could have him killed, and without any 'due process' nonsense either!

  Ron took a deep, frightened breath. "Please, Captain," he said, "I'm no threat. If you're looking for threats, you need look no further than dorm 17 on Deck 5. Now, there's a nest of vipers. I swapped out because I had offended a man there who would have killed me." He went on to tell about how he and Vlad had bought out the gang in the Drone dorm, and how they were beginning to organize as a community.

  The Captain shook his head. "You're not going to convince me you're some sort of white knight on a mission to save the drones. Four years ago I was a drone."

  "Not a white knight, Captain," Ron replied. "Just a man who wants to survive. If our little community idea works, maybe it will spread to the other Drone dorms, and we'll have a better chance of surviving the criminals and terrorists."

  The Captain's face was still stony. "You haven't explained why you wanted that schematic. I want the truth, and I want it now!" He threw the stylus against a wall. The sudden violence was shocking, especially as his stony expression did not change. "You have fifteen seconds, starting now. At the end of that time, I will call the guards and have you executed." His voice was cold, unemotional.

  Ron was sweating. "Captain," he said in a fervent tone, "I didn't have any plan, really! I just had an idea that it might be useful to get to know some crewmen. I just wanted to find their berthing area."

  "Why?"

  Ron released a deep sigh. "There are a number of people in Dorm 17 that have reason to dislike either me or the people of Dorm 7. I'm concerned that they may decide to come visiting. We've talked about putting together a militia to defend the dorm if necessary. As I said, I didn't really have a plan, but when I was talking to the computer, it told me that it had instructions for making things. I thought that if I could get acquainted with some of the crew, we might be able to convince them, or bribe them, to let us use the ship's workshops to make weapons for the militia. That's all, Captain, I swear."

  Captain Angelo's expression had thawed slightly. "What kind of weapons?"

  Ron shook his head. "Nothing sophisticated, sir. I don't think we'd have the skills, yet. For right now, I was thinking that billy clubs would be easy to turn out on a wood lathe. You know, the kind with the extra handle sticking out the side? I figured the computer might have information we could use to train with them."

  Captain Angelo nodded. "It does." He turned a narrowed gaze onto Ron. "Just batons? Nothing lethal?"

  Ron hesitated, and then shrugged. What the hell. He'd already told the Captain everything. "Well, sir, I've heard that that kind of club can be lethal."

  The Captain nodded, and a slight smile touched his lips. "They can, in skilled hands. And frankly, I'm not really worried about a few thugs getting their heads broken." He fell s
ilent, merely looking at Ron appraisingly for a long moment. Finally he sighed deeply.

  "All right, Creding. I'm going to believe you. It is my responsibility to try and get as many colonists as possible to a new world. As you have already mentioned, the real undesirables, the criminals and the revolutionaries, stand in the way of that responsibility. I need allies. People like yourself who are dedicated to making the best of the situation.

  "Yours is not the only dorm that is organizing and getting rid of its criminals. You might contact Dorm 3 and Dorm 12 on your deck. You're too scattered to unite, but a mutual assistance agreement might be a good start.

  "Weapons are a rather sore subject. For years the Captains have tried to get EarthGov to supply stunners that could be issued to dependable colonists, but EarthGov reacts violently to any suggestion involving armed colonists unless it's on a hostile planet.

  "And even the Captains realize there are drawbacks to armed colonists aboard ships. For one thing, any weapon that can be issued to a colonist can be stolen from that colonist, or taken from his body. However, I do like your baton idea. If your militia trains with the weapon, it can be used in a surprising number of ways, many of them defensive. And any thug who steals one is unlikely to be skilled enough to challenge someone who is skilled."

  He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his desk. "All right, Creding. You will get your side-handle batons, say twenty to start, and the computer will be authorized to use VR techniques to train your militia in their use. I am also giving you a special communications code for use with the computer. It won't connect you to me, but it will permit you to leave messages for me. I am interested in helping your dorm and the others I mentioned. Actually, I'm waiting for them to use the computer as you did. I'm afraid that if they lack that much imagination, they will have little chance of preserving their independence." He straightened. "Now, I really must get back onto the bridge. Is there anything I can do for you immediately? Besides the batons, I mean?"

  Ron nodded. "Well, sir, uh, Dr. James lost her supplies when we fled Dorm 17. Is there any chance you can replace at least some of them?

  Captain Angelo frowned. "Hmm," he began, "We have had three fatalities so far. Perhaps I can override the ship's schedule and issue some of their supplies. That would be a one-time thing, you understand. She is not the only one who has had their supplies stolen, and the ship does not carry spares to help them all."

  "I understand, sir. We will appreciate anything you can do. And you can be assured that Dorm 7 will support you against any of the criminals or revolutionaries."

  After a few minutes' more conversation, Ron was escorted back to the dorm by what he was sure was a roundabout route. The Captain was taking no chances.

  Ron's report generated a lot of excitement, though it was made only to Cesar, Raymond Koh, and Vlad. All were impressed that he had actual, ongoing contact with the Captain himself, but Cesar rejected the idea of contact with the other dorms.

  "It's too soon," he said. "We need to get ourselves established first. We don't know their situations. We have no choice with our "sister" dorm, since we share the mess room. But as far as others are concerned, as the Captain said, if they lack imagination enough to use the computer to help themselves, chances are some strong man who does have the imagination will end up taking over; and I would prefer such a man not know of us." He shook his head. "No, let us get established, and watch events in those dorms. It may be that we will have allies, but not yet."

  Raymond Koh greeted the news of the batons with a mixture of skepticism and delight. He barely let Ron finish his report before dragging him off to the training room to look at the VR program for training with the side-handle baton. What he saw impressed him. The batons were almost as much defensive as offensive, and in the type of hand-to-hand fighting they could expect, they would give the properly trained user a definite advantage over a barehanded or knife-armed opponent. He asked how Ron had come to know of them.

  Ron shrugged. "A few years ago I saw coverage of a food riot in some middle-eastern sector. The riot police moved in with shock batons and these side-handle things. I saw one of the cops attacked by a man with a club of his own. I was impressed with the way the side-handle let him deal with the man. I checked, and learned that EarthGov had stopped officially using them several years ago, because there was too much risk of killing someone. Frankly, I don't consider that a drawback in our situation!"

  Raymond grinned. "Neither do I." He shrugged. "Well, we'll see if the Captain really comes through with them. Meanwhile, I'll step up the planning for the militia." He clapped Ron on the back. "Excellent job, Ron. You've done well."

  The next day Ron, Vlad and Susan were deep in their struggle to devise a training schedule when two packages appeared in the delivery chute, one large and one small. Ron hurried to the chute, and opened the smaller one. He turned to Susan with a triumphant grin and said "This one's for you, Susan, compliments of the Captain."

  Susan squealed with delight as she examined the hygiene articles. She had done her best, but hygiene had been a problem for her ever since her arrival in Dorm 7.

  Actually, all of the westerners were having problems adapting to the lack of privacy in the unsegregated dorm. For centuries, the western cultures had devised complicated and often contradictory attitudes toward nudity and sexuality, which resulted in these subjects acquiring a mystique and influence far out of proportion to their actual importance. In the more crowded orient, these attitudes were more casual, and more natural. The Asians had acclimated much more easily to the communal bathing and casual nudity enforced by dorm life.

  In a ghetto, it was common for an entire family to live in one room. In such circumstances, nudity was unremarkable, except in public, and children grew up watching their parents have sex. In some ghettos, bathing took place in the street, due to a lack of running water. Usually wearing clothing, of course. Sexually, though, they were very conservative compared to westerners. Casual sex with multiple partners was a definite taboo, especially for women. That a man might have a mistress was accepted with casual disapproval; but for a woman to take a lover was to unleash a flood of condemnation.

  For the westerners, though, body shyness was common and public nudity scandalous. And Susan had been having the hardest time with the new mores. A child of privilege, she had not encountered communal showers since college, and had never encountered communal toilet facilities. She had never even considered that "communal" might mean, "Used by both sexes at the same time!"

  She had been wearing her shipsuit into the showers, stripping it off and hurriedly rushing a shower, using as little of her donated half-bar of soap as possible, and then, since she had no towel, climbing back into her shipsuit, her body and hair still wet. The supply pack with its spare shipsuits, vacuum-packed towels and genuine shampoo, was a greater gift than its weight in gold.

  While Susan hurried back to her bunk to examine her bounty in detail, Ron took the larger package into the training room, and then sought out Raymond.

  The Captain had been as good as his word. The package contained twenty, one piece plastic side-handle batons. Each baton was a simple cylinder some 75 cems in length, and slightly over five cems in diameter. A fifteen-cem handle protruded from one side near the textured grip.

  The batons were a simple variation on the cave man's club, but they were very effective in skilled hands; and Raymond planned to ensure that the hands of every militiaman were skilled!

  An excited Raymond grabbed one of the batons and a VR helmet, and was soon dancing around the room waving the baton in response to the instructions coming over the VR system.

  Ron shrugged and returned to the mess room, gathering Susan on the way. They were soon once again engrossed in planning.

  With two hundred residents, fifty stations, and four teachers, it would seem a simple process to set up a training schedule. But there were complications.

  Many of the people either wanted or didn't want to be in the
same class with certain other persons. Older illiterate residents did not want to be in class with younger, better-educated children and teens, especially their own grandchildren. And many residents didn't want to be there, period. Only Cesar Montero's bullying had made them agree to attend.

  But finally the schedule was taking shape. They had divided the residents into day and night shifts, and then further divided them into two classes for each shift. School sessions would be four hours long, to dovetail with the dining schedule.

  Now that they were underway, the dining schedule, established by the ship's computer, was much more flexible. They were no longer constrained by Earth's rotation. "Days" and "nights" were arbitrary. Dining hours could be established at any time of the "day" or "night," as could the dorm lighting systems. In fact, EarthGov had expected that the colonists would split into shifts, simply for additional room, if for no other reason.

  So, Ron would begin classes after breakfast in the day shift's "morning", and continue until lunchtime, four hours later. Vlad would begin classes after the day shift lunch, and continue until the day shift dinner.

  The night shift's schedule was a mirror image of the day shift's. Susan would start classes after the night shift's breakfast and continue until lunchtime, and Robert Franks would run the "afternoon" classes.

  Robert Franks had been pathetically grateful for his rescue from the Undie dorm. He had been reticent up there, but here he talked freely. As he had told Ron, he held a master's degree in computer science. During an all-night drinking-and-vid game session, he had taken a friend's challenge to hack into the EarthGov tax computer. His attempt was detected immediately, and by the time he had sobered up, he was enroute to the Classification Center.

  He, too had several years' experience teaching undergraduate classes, though that had been years ago. Robert was a bit introverted, and lacking in social skills, but he had a dry sense of humor and quiet cheerfulness that brought people to ignore his physical cowardice. Aside from Cesar, he was the most qualified fourth teacher available; and Cesar had other duties.