Nemesis (5 page)

Marlene was short and—
blunt
. That was the only word that Insigna could find that exactly fit poor Marlene.

And
poor
, of course. It was the adjective she almost always used in her own mind and could just barely keep out of her speech.

Short. Blunt. Thick without being fat, that was Marlene. Nothing graceful about her. Her hair was dark brown, rather long, and quite straight. Her nose was a little bulbous, her mouth turned down just a bit at the ends, her chin small, her whole attitude passive and turned in upon itself.

There were her eyes, of course, large and lustrously dark, with meticulous dark eyebrows that curved above them, long eyelashes that looked almost artificial. Still, eyes alone could not make up for everything else, however fascinating they might be at odd moments.

Insigna had known since Marlene was five that she was unlikely ever to attract a man on the physical plane
alone, and that had become more obvious with each year.

Aurinel had kept a languid eye on her during her preteen years, obviously attracted to her precocious intelligence and her almost luminous understanding. And Marlene had been shy and pleased in his presence, as though dimly realizing that there was something about an object called a “boy” that was somehow endearing, but not knowing what it might be.

In the last couple of years, it seemed to Insigna that Marlene had finally clarified in her mind what “boy” meant. Her omnivorous reading of books and viewing of films too old for her body, if not her mind, undoubtedly helped her in this, but Aurinel had grown older, too, and as his hormones began to exert their sway over him, it was no longer badinage he was in search of.

At dinner that night, Insigna asked, “What kind of day did you have, dear?”

“A quiet one. Aurinel came looking for me and I suppose he reported to you. I’m sorry you have to take the trouble to hunt me down.”

Insigna sighed. “But, Marlene, I can’t help but think sometimes that you’re unhappy and isn’t it natural for me to be concerned about that? You’re alone too much.”

“I like to be alone.”

“You don’t act it. You show no signs of happiness at being alone. There are many people who would like to be friendly and you would be happier if you allowed them to be. Aurinel is your friend.”

“Was. He’s all busy these days with other people. Today that was obvious. It infuriated me. Imagine him getting all wrapped up because he was thinking about Dolorette.”

Insigna said, “You can’t quite blame Aurinel, you know. Dolorette is his age.”

“Physically,” said Marlene. “What a bubblehead.”

“Physically counts a great deal at his age.”

“He shows it. It makes a bubblehead out of him, too. The more he slobbers over Dolorette, the emptier his head gets. I can tell.”

“But he’ll keep on getting older, Marlene, and when he’s a little older, he might find out what the really important
things are. And you’ll be getting older, too, you know—”

Marlene stared at Insigna quizzically. Then she said, “Come on, Mother. You don’t believe what you’re trying to imply. You don’t believe it for a minute.”

Insigna flushed. It suddenly occurred to her that Marlene wasn’t guessing. She
knew
—but how did she know? Insigna had made her remark as sincerely as she could, had tried to
feel
it. But Marlene had seen through it without effort. It wasn’t the first time either. Insigna had begun to feel that Marlene weighed the inflections, the hesitations, the motions, and always knew what you didn’t want her to know. It must be this quality that made Insigna increasingly frightened of Marlene. You don’t want to be glass to another’s scornful glance.

What had Insigna said, for instance, that had led Marlene to believe the Earth was doomed to destruction? That would have to be taken up and discussed.

Insigna suddenly felt tired. If she couldn’t ever fool Marlene, why try? She said, “Well, let’s get down to it, dear. What is it you want?”

Marlene said, “I see you really want to know, so I’ll tell you. I want to get away.”

“Get away?” Insigna found herself unable to understand the simple words her daughter had used. “Where is there to get away to?”

“Rotor isn’t all there is, Mother.”

“Of course not. But it’s all there is within more than two light-years.”

“No, Mother, that’s not so. Less than two thousand kilometers away is Erythro.”

“That scarcely counts. You can’t live there.”

“There
are
people living there.”

“Yes, but under a Dome. A group of scientists and engineers live there because they are doing necessary scientific work. The Dome is much smaller than Rotor. If you feel cramped here, what will you feel there?”

“There’s a whole world on Erythro outside the Dome. Someday people will spread out and live all over the planet.”

“Maybe. It’s by no means a certain thing.”

“I’m sure it is a certain thing.”

“Even if it is, it would take centuries.”

“But it has to begin. Why can’t I be part of the beginning?”

“Marlene, you’re being ridiculous. You’ve got a very comfortable home here. When did all this start?”

Marlene pressed her lips together, then said, “I’m not sure. A few months ago, but it’s getting worse. I just can’t stand it here on Rotor.”

Insigna looked at her daughter, frowning. She thought: She feels she has lost Aurinel, she is heartbroken forever, she will leave and punish him by doing so. She will send herself into exile on a barren world, and he will be sorry—

Yes, that line of thought was entirely possible. She remembered when she herself was fifteen. Hearts are so fragile then that a slight tap will crack them. Teenagers heal quickly, but no fifteen-year-old would or could believe that at the time. Fifteen! It is later,
later
that—

No use thinking about it!

She said, “What is it that attracts you about Erythro, Marlene?”

“I’m not sure. It’s a large world. Isn’t it natural to want a large world”—she hesitated, before adding the last two words, but she gulped them out somehow—“like Earth?”

“Like Earth!” Insigna spoke with vehemence. “You’ve never been on Earth. You don’t know anything about Earth!”

“I’ve seen a great deal about it, Mother. The libraries are full of films about Earth.”

(Yes, they were. Pitt had felt for some time now that such films ought to be sequestered—or even destroyed. He maintained that to break away from the Solar System meant to
break away;
it was wrong to maintain an artificial romanticism about Earth. Insigna had disagreed strongly, but now she suddenly thought that she could see Pitt’s point.)

She said, “Marlene, you can’t go by those films. They idealize things. They talk about the long past for the most part, when things on Earth were better, and, even so, it was never as good as they picture things to have been.”

“Even so.”

“No, not ‘even so.’ Do you know what Earth is like? It’s an unlivable slum. They’s why people have left it to form all the Settlements. People went from the large dreadful
world of Earth to small civilized Settlements. No one wants to go in the other direction.”

“There are billions of people who still live on Earth.”

“That’s what makes it an unlivable slum. Those who are there leave as soon as they can. That’s why so many Settlements have been built and are so crowded. That’s why we left the Solar System for
here
, darling.”

Marlene said in a lower voice, “Father was an Earthman. He didn’t leave Earth, even though he might have.”

“No, he didn’t. He stayed behind.” She frowned, trying to keep her voice level.

“Why, Mother?”

“Come, Marlene. We’ve talked about this. Many people stayed home. They didn’t want to leave a familiar place. Almost every family on Rotor had stay-on-Earths. You know that very well. Do you want to return to Earth? Is that it?”

“No, Mother. Not at all.”

“Even if you wanted to go, you’re over two light-years away and you can’t
go
. Surely you understand that.”

“Of course I understand that. I was just trying to point out that we have another Earth right here. It’s Erythro.
That’s
where I want to go; that’s where I
long
to go.”

Insigna couldn’t stop herself. It was almost with horror that she heard herself say, “So you want to break away from me, as your father did.”

Marlene flinched, then recovered. She said, “Is it really true, Mother, that he broke away from you? Perhaps things might have been different if you had behaved differently.” Then she added quietly, just as though she were announcing that she was done with dinner. “You drove
him
away, didn’t you, Mother?”

Odd—or perhaps stupid—that she was still capable of hurting herself unbearably with thoughts of that kind after fourteen years.

Crile was 1.8 meters tall where, on Rotor, the average height for men was a bit under 1.7 meters. That alone (as in the case of Janus Pitt) gave him a commanding aura of strength that persisted well after the time when she came to recognize, without ever quite admitting it to herself, that she could not rely on his strength.

He had a craggy face, too; a prominent nose and cheekbones, a strong chin—a look, somehow, of hunger and wildness. Everything about him spoke of strong masculinity. She could almost smell it when she met him, and was struck with fascination at once.

Insigna was still a graduate student in astronomy at the time, completing her stint on Earth, looking forward to returning to Rotor so that she could qualify for work on the Far Probe. She dreamed of the wide advances the Far Probe would make possible (and never dreamed that she herself would make the most astonishing one).

And then she met Crile and found herself, to her own confusion, madly in love with an Earthman—an
Earthman
. Overnight she felt herself abandoning the Far Probe in her mind, becoming ready to remain on Earth just to be with him.

She could still remember the way he had looked at her in astonishment and said, “Remain here with me? I’d rather come to Rotor with you.” She could not have imagined that
he
would want to abandon his world for
her
.

How Crile managed to obtain permission to come to Rotor, Insigna did not know and had never found out.

The immigration rules were strict, after all. Once any Settlement had a sizable population, it clamped down on immigration—first, because it could not exceed a certain definite limit on the number of people it could support comfortably, and, second, because it made a desperate effort to keep its ecological balance stable. People who came on important business from Earth—or even from other Settlements—had to undergo tedious decontamination procedures, a certain degree of isolation, and an enforced departure as soon as possible.

Yet here was Crile from Earth. He complained to her once of the weeks of waiting that had been part of the decontamination, and she was secretly pleased at the way he had persisted. Clearly, he must have wanted her very badly to submit to it.

Yet there were times when he seemed withdrawn and inattentive and she would wonder then what had really driven him to Rotor over such obstacles. Perhaps it was not she, but the need to escape Earth that had been the motivating force. Had he committed a crime? Made a murderous enemy? Fled a woman he had grown tired of? She had never dared ask.

And he had never offered information.

Even after he had been allowed to enter Rotor, there was a question as to how long he might be able to remain. The Bureau of Immigration would have to grant a special permit to make him a full citizen of Rotor and that was not ordinarily likely.

Insigna had found all the things that made Crile Fisher unacceptable to Rotorians additional inducements for fascination. She found that his being Earth-born lent him a difference and a glamour. True Rotorians would be bound to despise him as an alien—citizen or not—but she found even that a source of erotic excitement. She would fight for him, and triumph, against a hostile world.

When he tried to find some sort of work that would enable him to earn money and occupy a niche in the new society, it was she who pointed out to him that if he married a Rotorian woman—Rotorian for three generations—that would be a powerful inducement for the Bureau of Immigration to grant him full citizenship.

Crile seemed surprised at that, as though it hadn’t occurred to him, and then pleased. Insigna had found it a little disappointing. It would be much more flattering to be married for the sake of love than for the sake of citizenship, but then she thought to herself: Well, if that’s what it takes—

So, after a typical long Rotorian engagement, they were married.

Life went on without much change. He was not a passionate lover, but he had not been that before the marriage either. He had offered her an absent affection, an occasional warmth that kept her constantly near happiness if not altogether immersed in it. He was never actively cruel and unkind, and he
had
given up his world for her and gone through considerable inconvenience to be with her. Surely that might be counted in his favor, and Insigna counted it so.

Even as a full citizen, which he had been granted after their marriage, there remained a kernel of dissatisfaction within him. Insigna was aware of this and could not entirely blame him. He might be a full citizen, yet he was still not a native-born Rotorian and many of the most interesting activities on Rotor were closed to him. She did not know what his training had been, for he never mentioned how much of an education he had had. He didn’t
sound
uneducated, and there was no disgrace in being self-educated, but Insigna knew that on Earth the population did not take higher education as a given, the way that Settlement populations did.

The thought bothered her. She didn’t mind Crile Fisher being an Earthman and facing down her friends and colleagues where that was concerned. She didn’t know, though, if she could quite handle his being an
uneducated
Earthman.