Monsters in Orbit

by Jack Vance

  “Maybe you were drunk?^ suggested Jean hopefully.

  Mollie inspected her critically. “Pretty wise for a little snip your age…Ah, well, dreary me, I wasn’t far behind you, and I was more’n cute…Look at me now, you’d never guess it, me that’s been doin’ slops at Ten-Mile House for over twelve years….”

  “Who is my father?”

  “Nobody.”

  “That’s impossible!”

  Mollie shook her head. “That’s the way it happened. And how do I know? Because I was out in the Rehabilitation Home, and I’d been out there two years. Then I look down one day, I say, ‘Mollie, you’re getting big.’ And then I say, ‘Must be gas.’ And the next day I say, ‘Mollie, if it wasn’t that this damn jail is run like a goldfish tank, with eyes on you every last minute, and you know for a fact that you haven’t seen a man except old Cholwell and the Director—’”

  “Cholwell!”

  “Old Doc Cholwell was the medic, a cold fish…Lord on high, what a cold fish. Anyway I said to myself—”

  “It couldn’t be that Cholwell got to you?”

  Mollie snorted. “Old Cholwell? More likely pin it on Archangel Gabriel. That old—” she broke into obscene muttering. “To this day I’d like to catch that cod-faced sissy-panty, him that wouldn’t let me go when my time was up! Claimed I had disease, said I had to wait it out! Nothing doing. I made my own way out. I rode the truck in, and not a thing was there to do about it, because my time was up, and I was detained out of legal order. And then— I go to the doctor, old Doc Walsh, and he says, ‘Millie, the only trouble with you is that you’re just pregnant as hell.’ And the next thing you know, there’s the brat, and me without a crust or cooky, and needing my freedom, so I just carry her out to my good friend Joe, and a rare fuss he made too….”

  “How about the Director?”

  “What about him?”

  “Could he have—”

  Mollie snorted incredulously. “Not old Fussy Richard. He never even showed his face around. Besides he was fooling around some young snip in the office.”

  There was the sound of humming airfoils. Jean jumped to the ground, craned her neck at the departing air-boat. “Now what in Heaven’s name.…I told him to wait. How will I get back to Angel City?”

  “Well, well,” said a reedy precise voice from within the saloon. “Well, well, this is indeed a quaint old relic.”

  Mollie Salomon heaved herself to her feet. “That voice!” Her face was tinged with an unhealthy pink. “That voice, I’d never miss it, it’s old Cholwell.”

  Jean followed her into the saloon.

  “Now, you pickle-faced little freak, what brings you out here? Do you know that I’ve swore long and time again that if ever I caught you off your nasty Home, I’d pour slops on you, and do you know that’s just what I’m going to do…Just wait for my bucket…” Mollie turned and panted away down the corridor.

  Jean said, “Did you send my cab away, Mr. Cholwell?”

  Cholwell bowed. “Yes, Miss Parlier. I’ve been wanting to show you my chicken ranch, and I thought that today you might accept my invitation.”

  “And suppose I didn’t, then how do I get back to Angel City?”

  Cholwell made an elegant gesture. “Naturally I will take you anywhere you wish to go.”

  “And suppose I don’t want to ride with you?”

  Cholwell looked pained. “In that case, of course, I’m guilty of a grave imposition, and can only offer you my apologies.”

  Mollie Salomon came running into the room with a bucket, puffing and sobbing with anger. Cholwell backed out into the open with considerable agility, sacrificing none of his dignity.

  Mollie ran out on the porch. Cholwell retreated further across the yard. Mollie chased him a few steps, then dashed the contents of the bucket in his direction. Cholwell dodged clear of the mess by twenty feet. Mollie shook her fist. “And don’t set foot in Ten-Mile again, or there’ll be worse for you, far worse, you nasty little swine.” And she added further scurrility.

  A squat dough-faced woman scuttling after fastidious Cholwell with a bucketful of slops was too much for Jean. She broke into delighted laughter. At the same time her eyes smarted with tears. Her father and her mother. In spite of Mollie’s angry protests Cholwell owned to a daughter who resembled her, Martha, Sunny, Jade, whatever her name.

  With not a glance for Jean, Mollie disappeared triumphantly into the saloon. Cholwell approached, mopping his forehead angrily. “For two cents I’d put a charge against her, and have her committed…”

  “Are you my father, Mr. Cholwell?” asked Jean.

  Cholwell turned a bright searching glance upon her. “Why-ever do you ask that, Miss Parlier? It’s a very curious question.”

  “Mollie is my mother. She says she became pregnant while you were the only man nearby.”

  Cholwell shook his head decidedly. “No, Miss Parlier.

  Morality to one side, I assure you that I am still a man of fastidious taste and discernment.”

  Jean admitted to herself that a passionate combination of Cholwell and Mollie was hard to conceive. “Who, then, is my father?”

  X

  Cholwell raised his eyebrows as if in apprehension of a painful duty he felt called on to perform. “It appears that —excuse me, I will be blunt; I feel that, young as you are, you are a realist—it appears that your mother’s relations with men were such as to make responsibility indefinite.”

  “But she was at the Rehabilitation Home; she says she never saw any other man but you.”

  Cholwell shook his head doubtfully. “Perhaps you’d like to visit the old Home? It’s almost adjacent to my own—”

  Jean snapped, “Once and for all, I’m not interested in your damn chickens. I want to go back to Angel City.”

  Cholwell bowed his head in defeat. “Angel City it is, and I apologize for my presumption.”

  Jean said shortly, “Where’s your boat?”

  “This way, around the bear-pad.” He led around the white slab of fungus.

  The air-boat was old and stately. The words Codiron Rehabilitation Home had been painted over, but the out-fines were still legible.

  Cholwell slid back the door. Jean hesitated, glanced thoughtfully back toward the Ten-Mile House.

  “Something you’ve forgotten?” asked Cholwell courteously.

  “No…I guess not.”

  Cholwell waited patiently. Jean said angrily, “It’s just this, Mr. Cholwell. I’m young and there’s a lot I don’t know, but—”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve got an awful quick temper. So—let’s get started. To Angel City.”

  “To Angel City,” said Cholwell thoughtfully.

  Jean jumped into the boat. Cholwell closed the door, circled the boat; then, as if struck by a, sudden notion, slid back the access panel to the motor box.

  Jean watched warily. He seemed to be making a minor adjustment.

  The air was bad inside the cab, smelling of varnish and stale ozone. She heard the ventilation system turn on: evidently the object of Cholwell’s ministrations. The air became cool and fresh. Very fresh. Smelling of pine needles and hay. Jean breathed deeply. Her nose and lungs tingled…She frowned. Odd. She decided to—but Cholwell had finished, was coming around the side of the boat. He approached the door, looked in.

  Jean could see his face only from the comer of her eye. She was not certain of his expression. She fancied that he nodded, smiled.

  He did not immediately climb into the boat, but stood looking off across the valley toward the three volcanic necks, black stumps on the dingy sky.

  The smell of pine needles and hay permeated Jean’s head, her body. She was faintly indignant…Cholwell at last opened the door, held it wide. The wind up Plaghank Valley swept through the boat, bringing in the familiar efflorescence of dust and hot rock.

  Cholwell cautiously tested the air, finally climbed in, closed the door. The air-boat quivered; Ten-Mile House became a dilapidated
miniature below. They flew north. Angel City was to the south.

  Jean remonstrated, in the form of heavy breathing. Cholwell smiled complacently. “In the old days we sometimes transported obstreperous patients; very troublesome until we installed the pacifier tank and connected it to the air ducts.”

  Jean breathed hard.

  Cholwell said indulgently, “In two hours you’ll be as good as new.” He began humming a song, an old-fashioned sentimental ballad.

  They rode over a ridge, swung in blustering wind currents, settled into a valley. A great black escarpment rose opposite. Bright blue sunlight shone alone the face, reflecting from vertical ridges as if they were fringes of foil.

  The boat shuddered and vibrated alone the valley lower than the great black cliff. Presently a cluster of pink buildings appeared, nestled against the rock.

  “Can you see our destination, there ahead?” Cholwell asked solicitously. “It will be your home for a little while— but don’t let me alarm you. There will be compensations.” He hummed quietly for a moment. “And your money will be put to a good cause.” He darted a glance into her face. “You are skeptical? You dislike the idea? But, I insist, there will be compensations, for you become one of my—little chickens.” The idea amused him. “One of my little flock…But I will be discreet; I don’t wish to alarm you…”

  The boat settled toward the sprawling cluster of pink buildings. “One of the old Trotter sites,” said Cholwell in a reverent voice. “Ancient past human imagination, and a perfect sun-trap. You see, I told you no more than the truth. I must confess that the plant is neglected, sadly neglected, these days, with only myself and a small staff to tend the flock…Now that we are to be affluent, perhaps we will make some changes.” He scanned the group of buildings with flared nostrils. “Hideous. The worst of the century, the Rococo Revival. And pink stucco over the sound old stone-foam…But money can mend where wishing and hoping fails.” He clicked his tongue. “Perhaps we will move to one of the tropical planets; this Codiron land is bleak and stem, and the blackwater frost begins to worry my old bones.” He laughed. “I ramble on…If I become a bore, you must interrupt…And here we are. Home.”

  Bright pink walls rose up past Jean’s vision. She felt a jar.

  The door opened; she glimpsed Cholwell’s face and the grinning yellow countenance of a spare muscular woman.

  Hands helped her to the ground, hands went over her person. Her dart-box, her coiled glass-knife were taken from her; she heard Cholwell clucking in satisfaction.

  Hands half-led, half-carried her into the gloom of a building.

  They traversed an echoing hall lit through a row of high narrow panes. Cholwell stopped beside a heavy door, turned and his face came into the range of Jean’s vision.

  “When my little flock becomes restless, they must be penned securely…But trust wins trust, and—” his voice was lost in the rattle of the door-skids.

  Jean moved forward. Face after face appeared in the channel of her vision. Startled face after startled face. As if she were looking” in a succession of mirrors. Her own face looking back at her, again and again.

  She felt softness beneath her, and now saw nothing but the ceiling. She heard Cholwell’s voice. “This is your long-lost sister, returned to us at last. I think there’ll be good news for us all shortly.”

  Something hot and very painful touched her wrist. She lay looking at the ceiling, breathing hard. The pain presently subsided to an ache.

  Her eyelids sank shut.

  Jean studied the girls covertly under her eyelids. There were six of them—slender dark-haired girls with impatient intelligent faces. They wore their hair longer than hers, and perhaps they were softer and prettier to a trifling degree. But essentially they were her. Not merely like her. They were her.

  They wore a costume like a uniform—white knee-length breeches, a loose yellow blouse, black coolie sandals. Their faces suggested that they were bored and sullen, if not angry.

  Jean sat up on the couch, yawned, yawned, yawned, as if she would never get enough. Her perceptions sharpened; memory returned to her.

  The girls were sitting in a half-hostile circle. To understand them, Jean told herself, just put myself in their places.

  “Well,” said Jean, “don’t just sit there.”

  The girls moved a trifle, each shifting her position as if by a common impulse.

  “My name is Jean.” She rose to her feet, stretched, smoothed back her hair. She looked around the room. A dormitory in the old Rehabilitation Home. “A hell of a rat’s nest. I wonder if old Cholwell’s listening?”

  “Listening?”

  “Does he have the place wired for sound? Can he—” she noted the lack of comprehension. “Wait I’ll take a look. Sometimes the mikes are easy to spot, sometimes not.”

  The pick-up button would be close to the door or close to the window, to allow the entry of wires. A radio pickup would be conspicuous in this barren room.

  She found the button where she expected to find it, over the door, with hair wires leading through the crack. She snapped it loose, displayed it to the other girls. “There. Old Cholwell could hear every word we said.”

  One of the girls took the thing gingerly. “So that’s how he always finds out what’s going on…How did you know it was here?”

  Jean shrugged. “They’re common enough…How come we’re all locked up? Are we prisoners?”

  “I don’t know about you. We’re being punished. When Cholwell went away to Earth, some of us rode the supply boat into Angel City…We don’t get the chance very often. Cholwell was furious. He says we’ll spoil everything.””

  “What’s everything?”

  She made a vague gesture. “In a little while we’ll all be rich, according to Cholwell. Well live in a fine house, we can do anything we want. First, he’s got to get the money. It’s been like that ever since I can remember.”

  “Cherry’s gone after the money,” said another girl.

  Jean blinked. “There’s another?”

  “There were seven of us. You make eight. Cherry left this morning for Angel City. She’s supposed to get money; I think she’s taking the next packet to Earth.”

  “Oh,” said Jean. Was it possible…Could it be…She thought she saw the scope of Cholwell’s plan. She said, “Let me see your hand.”

  The girl held out her hand indifferently. Jean compared it with her own, squinted closely. “Look, it’s the same.”

  “Of course it’s the same.”

  “Why of course?”

  The girl inspected Jean with a puzzled half-contemptuous expression. “Don’t you know?”

  Jean shook her head. “I never knew till—well, there were rumors and talk around Angel City—but until I saw you I thought I was the only one of me there was. All of a sudden there’s six others.”

  “Seven others.”

  “Seven others. I’m really—well, astonished. Thunderstruck. But it hasn’t sunk in yet.”

  “Cholwell says we should be grateful to him. But—none of us like him. He won’t let us do anything.”

  XI

  Jean looked around the six faces. They lacked some quality which she had. Fire? Willfulness? Jean tried to fathom the difference between herself and the others. They seemed as bright and as willful as she was herself. But they had not acquired the habit of thinking for themselves. There were too many of them subjected to the same stimuli, thinking the same thoughts. There was no leadership among them. She asked, “Aren’t you curious about me? You don’t seem to care one way or the other.”

  “Oh.” The girl shrugged. “It’ll all come out.”

  “Yes,” said Jean. “No doubt…I don’t like it here.”

  “We don’t either.”

  “Why don’t you leave? Run away?”

  All the girls laughed. “Run where? Across two hundred miles of mountains and rock? And afterward, then what? We’ve no money to get away from Codiron.”

  Jean sniffed contemp
tuously. “A good looking girl can always get money.”

  They looked genuinely interested. “How?”

  “Oh—there’s ways. I guess you’ve never travelled very much.”

  “No. We see a few films and watch the television and read books.”

  “Cholwell picks out all the books?”

  “Yes.”

  The old Svengali____ “

  “Who’s he?”

  “Somebody like Cholwell, only just about—no, exactly, one eighth as ambitious…How did it all start?”

  The girl nearest her shrugged.. Where the blouse had slipped back on her wrist there was a tattoo mark. Jean leaned forward, read, “Felice.” Aroused by a sudden memory she looked at her own wrist. Tattooed into the ivory skin was “Jean.”

  Now she was really angry. “Tagging us like cattle!”

  None of the others shared her indignation. “He says he has to tell us apart.”

  “Damned old scoundrel…In some way, somehow…” Her voice trailed away. Then: “How is it that we’re all the same?”

  Felice was watching her with bright calculating eyes. “You’ll have to ask Cholwell. He’s never told us.”

  “But your mothers? Who are your mothers?”

  Felice wrinkled her nose. “Let’s not talk of nastiness.”

  The girl next to her said with a trace of malice, “You saw old Svenska, the woman that helped you in? That’s Felice’s mother.”

  “Oooh!” said Felice. “I told you never to remind me! And don’t forget your own mother, the woman that died with only half a face.…”

  Jean gritted her teeth, walked up and down the room. “I want to get out of this damn jail…I’ve been in jails and homes and camps and orphan asylums before; I’ve always got out. Somehow.” She looked suspiciously around the six faces. “Maybe you’re all stringing in with Cholwell. I’m not.”

  “We’re not either. But there’s nothing we can do.”

  “Have you ever thought of killing him?” Jean asked sarcastically. “That’s easy enough. Stick him once with a good knife, and hell change his mind the next time he wants to lock people up…Ill stick him if I get a chance…”