The Yellow Fraction

by Rex Gordon

  The Blues and the Greens were therefore agreed on landing, and between them they were the great majority.

  But because it had worked out that way, and the faction that talked of tinning Arcon into a green and pleasant land were called the Greens, and the faction that talked of mankind’s adapting to a blue planet were called the Blues, then the minority, who were against the landing, had to be given a name that damned them.

  They were called the Yellows.

  III

  Life was different on Arcon after five hundred years. There was a people for one thing, instead of a community, and manufacturing industries and commerce had grown up in the great cities by the shallow seas.

  There was a political structure, and a government, and national and local institutions, a senate, and organizations that came down from the national to the local level, and produced their results in homes and shops and offices, amid the results of what had become known as the Arcon style of architecture.

  For example, there was the downward-facing window behind Gorlston’s head.

  Gorlston looked at Len thoughtfully across the desk with the view and the light behind him. “I don’t think you quite realize what you’re saying, Thomas, when you say you may be a Yellow.”

  Did Len? He did not know. He had been born on Arcon, in its five-hundred-year civilization, and he could not escape its standards.

  “I think I know what the Yellows are, Mr. Gorlston. And, believe me, I don’t want to be named a Yellow.”

  On Arcon, a Yellow could not be employed, nor could he get public relief.

  “Tell me,” Gorlston said.

  Len hated to do it for some reason. It seemed to him too easy, when everyone knew the case against them, to condemn the Yellows.

  “The Yellows are the anti-Arcon party. They’ve been against our Arcon government and Arcon civilization since the early days. All the great troubles we have had on Arcon are said to be due to the Yellows, who caused them by their sabotage. It was first said they were causing trouble when the First Agricultural Program went to pieces after forty years.”

  Len realized his mistake after he had said it. It was just exactly what someone who had attended Berkeley’s lectures would do. Instead of saying the troubles were due to the Yellows, he had said they were said to be due to the Yellows.

  It sounded like a small thing, that conditional view of truth, but Len knew that by his job Gorlston would see it as a mistake, and that instead of recovering himself and improving his position with Gorlston, Len was losing points.

  Outside the window, and in the area all around them that Len could see, the college was going on with its normal life. But Len felt cut off from it while talking to Gorlston. Why did he have something of the feeling of a small boy again, talking to a heavy-handed teacher, in the junior grade?

  Maybe he was playing for bigger stakes than small boys usually played for.

  “Go on,” Gorlston said.

  “You want me to go on talking about the Yellows?”

  “Yes.”

  If you want to know, I’ve had some sympathy for the Yellows, just because everyone is down on them, and as far as I’m concerned they have been invisible. Len didn’t say it.

  How did they feel, with everyone’s hand against them?

  “The airlines had crashes.” Better not say what he thought. “That must have been later. The government had to take over transport and communications. That was how we got the army. In case the settlements revolted. Then it was because of the disaster period, when we became an industrial society, that the Information Office had to be set up, to seek out the Yellows.”

  Gorlston had a clean, well-fed face, and a white collar. “I’ve heard third-grade students give me a better history of the Yellows than you are giving me,” he said to Len.

  Len was not surprised.

  “Maybe that’s true.” He wished he could remember not to be tart. “Third-grade students would have it by heart, since it would be in their examination that year.”

  Gorlston looked speculative.

  Gorlston looked like an angler who had gone fishing. He had to set bait to catch a fish like Len.

  “While you have forgotten your history?”

  Len sat where he was and tried not to wriggle on the hook.

  “Not since Mr. Berkeley, sir.”

  Gorlston opened Len’s file and turned the pages, pointing. “You are a final-year science and technology student. Mathematics and electronics. So why did you go back to history?”

  Len blushed.

  “Science students don’t like history, do they?” Gorlston said calmly. “Dead stuff, past events, boring speeches. Isn’t that the view you people take of it?”

  “It was a girl, sir,” Len said. "A girl called June. There was this new history lecturer. You remember, sir? It was pushed.” Len’s eyes opened wider. “Everyone should go to them. June said she was going, and would I go with her.”

  “This girl, June,” Gorlston said. “She kept up with the course? She attended all the lectures and signed your petition at the end?”

  Len looked away at the corner of the room. “No, sir. Not many students stayed to the end. June found Mr. Berkeley a little coarse.”

  “Coarse?”

  Len struggled with what he tried to remember of the incident.

  “I think it was when Mr. Berkeley talked about the so-called Perfect World, sir. That is, the civilization that existed on Earth before our people left it. Mr. Berkeley said that affairs on Earth were supposed to be so well arranged that people had nothing to do but make conversation and play games and make love all day. That’s why additives had to be added to the water supply so they didn’t have children except when the additives were stopped, which was always at three p.m. on Tuesdays.

  “And?”

  “I laughed, sir. June didn’t.”

  In fact, June had been furious.

  “So you think it is funny, when a man who is supposed to be a responsible lecturer jokes about the Progenitive Right of Man, which is one of the reasons our ancestors left Earth for Arcon?”

  Was it? Reading through the lines of Berkeley’s lectures, you came to doubt it.

  “I think it was Mr. Berkeley’s personality, sir.”

  “That excused him?’’

  “He was bright, sir. Bright and witty. Sometimes bitter. Sometimes his lectures seemed superficial, sir, but at the same time shrewd, a good man.”

  Gorlston looked hard at Len. “Maybe I was right,” he said. “Maybe there was something in this suggestion of a homosexual relationship between yourself and Berkeley.”

  Len felt sick.

  “You had talks with him, didn’t you? He lent you books?” It would not have been much advantage to Len to attend the lectures if he had not got as far as that with his tutor.

  “It’s a lie, sir.”

  “Do you know your June told me that when she told you

  to choose between her and Berkeley, you chose Berkeley?” June? Where did June come into this?

  “Your June is in very good standing with the Information Office,” Gorlston said. “You should be the same.”

  Len had known that some students made a point of working with the Information Office. But June? June was the one who had taken him to Berkeley’s lectures, then stayed away. . ..

  “It helps,” Gorlston said. “For example, when you leave the college. You know you will be leaving the college shortly, don’t you? Employers don’t like people with a low Information Office rating. They don’t employ them, for patriotic reasons.”

  Such as that if an employer did employ someone with a low I.O. rating, he would soon get a low I.O. rating himself, and get no government contracts.

  Not merely would he get no government contracts himself, but a bigger firm that employed him as a sub-contractor would get no government contracts either.

  “I’m leaving the college shortly, sir?”

  Not before the final examinations, surely.

&nb
sp; “We can’t have homosexuals in the college,” Gorlston said. “Neither among the staff nor with the students.”

  It began to look as though it did not matter if Len told that story or someone else did.

  June, perhaps?

  “If I don’t pass the exam, sir... I”

  “There are more important things in life than examination results,” Gorlston said. “Such as your Information Office rating.”

  How true that was.

  “But, sir—”

  “But when we quietly got rid of Berkeley, you had to start to make a fuss and raise a hornet’s nest about him. You’ve got to put that right.”

  Len wondered wildly if he could say he had caught Berkeley stealing the silver teaspoons, or something comparatively innocuous. But for what? To save himself? The last person anyone seemed to be considering in this was Berkeley.

  “I won’t do it, sir.”

  “You’d prefer to be dismissed as a homosexual and be given a Yellow rating?”

  Len gulped.

  He tried to foresee a future for himself, in a competitive society, with a double burden. How he would eat, for example? How did Yellows eat? Anyone giving them a handout would be automatically classed a Yellow.

  “Sir-”

  “You’re a fool. Do you know that?"

  Don’t tell me. I’ve been suspecting it for a long time.

  A Yellow fool. Len looked out of the window. Did all the people in the college out there know they were standing on their heads? Or was that just the effect of looking at the world upward, from the underside?

  “If that’s all you can say for yourself, you can go,” said Gorlston.

  Len stood up. He was surprised to be told he could go. If he was a Yellow, weren’t they going to arrest him then and there?

  “And pack,” said Gorlston. “Just go to your room and wait there.” He moved his hand very slightly on his desk, and on Len’s left the door swung open. Len went for it. These electronic desks were wonderful.

  “Don’t leave the college,” Gorlston said.

  Len was outside in the corridor, looking at the elevator, which was waiting for him. Was he not under guard? Was no one going to accompany him to his room, and see he did not leave the college?

  It did cross his mind that Gorlston might just possibly be giving him a chance to do something desperate. But what? Suicide?

  Len headed for the elevator with some determination. Who did the Information Office and the Blues and Greens think they were, anyway? Len headed for the outer world, for life, such as it was, on the planet Arcon.

  IV

  Life on Arcon was human, and as such it contained many echoes. The distances were enormous, and the planets were different, but wherever Man went in the cosmos there would be variety, and numbers of complications, and the conflict of different people. No history could be seen exclusively in Yellow, or for that matter in Green or Blue terms.

  No history was ever balanced. No historian was ever what he hoped to be, objective. As well might an historian, way back on Earth, be asked to write a history of the Buddha, when he was a follower of the Prophet. No atheist could tell the story of the early Christian churches, and no follower of one church would not be disputed by all the rest.

  Documents were the raw material of history. Documents were always the truth of history. Yet documents were only the truth for the man who wrote them:

  The Diary of J. Adolf Koln

  The diary of J. Adolf Koln is especially interesting because the Genera] was appointed commander of the Arcon First Army in the early sixth century After Landing. His command carried a seat on the General Staff and an office in the Hexagon in Davis City, and he was in a central position in world affairs at the time of the Rocket Project, which was Len Thomas’ era.

  June 3, 502 A.L.

  I think I can say I am a patriot. Whether the word is applied to a country, a people or a planet, it means the same thing. In my mind it has a special meaning and a special feeling. For this reason I must try to be worthy of the magnitude of my new appointment,

  June 9, 502 A.L.

  I must define the reasons why I have begun to keep this journal. What do I see around me in my world of Arcon? I see the army, ordered, disciplined, and ever ready to do what it has to do. Beyond the army, 1 see civilians, neither ordered nor disciplined, all seeking their own advantage and pulling in ail directions. It grieves me that there should be such a difference between the Service to which I have given my life and the civilian population, who are the ones we serve. On moving to the capital to take up my new appointment I will see commercial and political life at first hand. I will test my conclusion that this planet is corrupt. Ultimately, l may have to do something about this.

  June 13, 502 A.L.

  What should a general do, when he is bound by his oath of loyalty to a group of politicians whom he knows to be self-seeking and lacking both principles and honor? There must be an answer to this sense of frustration that is my feeling. I must think of it profoundly.

  The diaries of J. Adolf Koln, with similar entries, are just one of the documents at which the would-be historian of Arcon should glance from time to time. They were not without their relevance, though overshadowed by the Information Office files, the archives of Arcon (which was a private collection), The Jottings of G. Berkeley, and sometimes, though with every caution, the standard histories of Arcon, which were best when dealing with generalities or ancient times, since they could only be written long afterward, when opinions at the time were always so misleading.

  V

  From The Short History of Arcon:

  When the starship landed on Arcon, after the argument that had been settled by the legitimate democratic procedure of the vote, it became apparent at once that the Yellows had been wrong, and that either the Blues or Greens, or both, had been quite right. People did not merely walk out of the starship onto Arcon. They ran and jumped, and enjoyed themselves in their new surroundings, breathing healthy air.

  It was natural that the most elaborate precautions were taken, and that all substances on Arcon were analyzed, before, for example, anyone was allowed to drink the water. Contrary to the Yellows’ warnings, no poisonous substances were found, however. It was true that the chemistry of Arcon was different. There was an excess of iridium and tantalum, and a lack of iron. Many new compounds were in evidence, especially in the biochemical sphere, but the expedition, running up its dwellings, exploring a seashore, and laying out the ground plan of a town on a site found by a William Davis, proved exceptionally fortunate. The new compounds were present in almost everything, but they substituted well for Earth compounds, allowed crops to flourish when grown from Earth-type seed, and were stable, and, as far as could be seen for many years, nontoxic.

  The experiment of allowing laboratory animals to live on the local produce first, before humans did, was quite successful. Inevitably they were small animals that lived short lives, but this allowed it to be demonstrated that they thrived and reproduced themselves.

  Arcon therefore was a planet intended for human occupation. It lacked insects, and the laboratory insects died, but this was thought on the whole a good thing. The colonists had been more concerned that the laboratory insects should not escape and infest the planet, than that they should live long lives. The physical features of Arcon were found to be its deserts, which were wild and vast and dusty; the dust that was frequently in the higher atmosphere, explaining its iridescence; and also, fortunately, its shallow inland seas. A fairly rich indigenous flora and fauna were found in the primeval swamp-lands that surrounded the shallow seas, and the most dangerous life-form was found to be a swamp-frog, about nine inches long, which could spit a jet of poison that could penetrate the skin like a tiny dart. A disproportionate amount of energy and resources had to be expended in combating this insignificant swamp-frog.

  The starship was kept up for a while, despite the calls for its machinery and constituent metals. It was not felt safe to disman
tle it, at least until the first generation of children had been bom, and proved to be normal, vigorous, and healthy. Scientific investigation of the environment was continued, and certain of the relatively new compounds common on Arcon were found to be a fairly effective insecticide.

  The Blue faction remained cautious, pointing out that there had been long-term effects from certain insecticides that had been used on Earth, though agreeing that, whatever the differences in the environment were, men would ultimately adapt to them. The Green faction was joyful, insisting that everything was straightforward, and that already, with Earth grass growing, Arcon was on the way to becoming a green and pleasant land. A slight bluing of the edges of the grass was a minor effect, and of no consequence. The Yellows were not heard of at this time. If they thought anything, they kept it to themselves.

  The starship was stripped down after twenty years on Arcon, when the first grandchild of an original. settler was bom, and proved to be whole and healthy. It was suggested that it would be good to keep the starship intact for sentimental reasons, but though the planet was not deficient in metals and the use of the new alloys would in time be successful, the expanding rural economy demanded iron in the early stages. Also the atomic generators of the starship were badly needed as a source of power. Altogether, a lot of people had been looking at the starship with acquisitive eyes for a long time, and when the order was given it was stripped and cannibalized very rapidly. A few Yellows objected then, but no one took any notice.

  The first people, the original settlers on Arcon, lived a few years more, then died.

  The second generation, then aged forty downward, said, “Fancy Mom and Pop dying at sixty. That’s young. The star journey must have taken more out of them than we ever realized. Pity we didn’t do more for them when they were alive.”