Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel (33 page)

“Yes. And the great majority are indeed receiving double pay.”

“That’s a very stupid policy in terms of the gene pool. I mean, why cut off the genetic continuation of the most intelligent people on the planet?”

“Not to worry, Neil, not to worry. Part of the contract, don’t you remember, was the depositing of sperm and eggs in the gene bank before the surgery.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. Why did you say
appalled
?”

She blushed, and her tone of ironic disapproval turned to one of sadness. “Because it’s so blind about what life really means. Because we have a ship full of people engaging in sexual intercourse at a frantic, I would say, addictive, pace.”

“I assumed there was some activity. But I’ve seen no evidence of frantic.”

She laughed humorlessly. “I wonder why? In any event, most people on board pursue their pleasures desperately, furtively, and serially.”

“Hey, Pia, I thought sex was good for us. As in healthy, as in natural.”

“Yes,” she nodded, “in the right context.”

“Context? What context?”

She gave this a moment’s consideration then went on with her own line of thought: “There are no moral sanctions anymore, so why are the majority of the sexually active on anti-depressants, and why are so many of the fertile minority on contraceptives and anti-depressants?”

“I don’t know why they’re depressed, but the furtiveness is just a need for privacy, don’t you think? And to avoid angry scenes with jilted lovers, no doubt.”

“But why the desperation and instability of sexual relationships? It has all the symptoms of a pathology.”

“That’s what the old moralists said.”

“Yes, and it may be that those old moralists got a few things right.”

Pia had used some antiquated terms, and it sounded like her disapproval was more than scientific.

“There is absolutely no life coming from it”, she went on. “And very little love, I would say.”

“That’s no different from the way things are back on Earth.”

“Yes”, she nodded. “And what a happy planet we are.”

“You sound harsh today. This isn’t like you.”

“Isn’t it? Maybe I’m just getting tired of it all—the way everyone treats the pathological as normal. The way people treat their bodies and their hearts like pleasure machines. I’m tired of what this is doing to human nature in the long run. Tired of having to pick up the pieces.”

“What pieces? Do you mean there are still sexual diseases?”

“Oh, no, certainly not. Everyone’s clean as a whistle now. You know that. We beat the consequences ages ago. There’s only one remaining sexual disease we haven’t been able to conquer, and never will.”

“Which one is that?”

“A child”, she said with a ferocity that was unbecoming of her. “A child in the womb.”

“Surely that doesn’t happen on the
Kosmos
.”

“Oh, yes, it happens. It’s rare, but it happens.”

“Then what?”

“Mandatory termination of pregnancy and sterilization of the biological parents. It’s all in the contracts. Didn’t you read the fine print?”

I shook my head. “Pia, what about you and Paul?”

“What
about
me and Paul?”

“I mean. . .”

“I know what you mean. The answer is no. Neither of us are sterilized, and we are not sleeping together. And we won’t until we’re married. Weird, eh?”

“I’m sorry I asked.”

She stared at me hard, as if I too were a brainwashed member of the sterile elite.

“Pia . . . I hope this won’t sound, well, patronizing . . . but I just want to say that I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you both.”

“Proud?” she said in a quiet voice. “Why would you be proud of us? Are you a moralist too?”

I shrugged. “Nah, I just admire resistance.”

She gazed at me without speaking, weighing what I had said.

“I don’t think it’s a mask, Pia. I just feel . . . proud of you.”

She swallowed, and her hard expression melted. Tears sprang into her eyes. “Be as patronizing as you like, Neil. It’s so refreshing.”

I patted her shoulder. She put her head on my chest. I hugged her, kissed the top of her head. She cried. Then we said good-bye and went off in opposite directions—furtively.

Day 2646
:

I had a bizarre dream last night. In it, we had landed on AC-A-7. I was exploring a jungle filled with exotic flowers and wild animals with eight legs. I stopped by a forest stream to take a drink from it, my first sip of real water in nine years. Without warning, Don Gunn dropped out of a tree above my head. He was ten feet tall, his skin was blue, and he was naked except for a feather loincloth. Pointing a buzzing golf club at me, he growled in an impossibly deep voice, “Now, you die!” His little dog Feedo was yapping about my ankles. I backed away from them in terror.

I was preparing to take my last breath when out of the bushes sprang a giant Sonoran toad with a wide open mouth, roaring like a lion. The mouth had rows of fangs. It gobbled down Feedo and then hopped lazily away into the jungle, knocking over trees in its path. Don fell to the ground and threw a screaming fit: “Feedo, Feedo, Feedo!”

Mercifully, I woke up.

While eating my solitary breakfast, I wondered what Don and Raydawn and Feedo were having for their morning fare. It wasn’t worth thinking about, and I glanced around the room hoping for a distraction. I spotted Maria Kempton sipping coffee at a table nearby and went over to her.

“Good morning, Maria.”

“Good morrow, kind sir.”

“Maria, I know this is out of the blue, but I wonder if you’d mind showing me the photos of your grandchildren again.”

“Delighted”, she said, reaching for a voluminous purse.

We looked at the beautiful faces for some time, and she told me stories about their interests and activities, their personal foibles, and a surprising variety of fine qualities.

Over a second cup of coffee, she said, “How strange a world it would be without children.”

“That
is
our world”, I answered.

“Yes, true. Or almost true. Some do get through the screening, though it’s really not enough. It’s enough for the survival of a depopulated race, perhaps, but not enough for human hearts.”

“Well, we’ve got a taste of a childless world here on the ship.”

“A sterile world. Strange, isn’t it, Neil, the way we’ve got everything turned upside down? Health is dangerous; fruitless is good.”

“Yup.”

“Tell me, if you had ever married, what would you have given your children?”

“You use the plural, Maria. There’s volumes of meaning in your word-choice.”

“You’re a rebel, sir—that I can see very well. So, what would you have given?”

“Horizons.”

“What kind of horizons?”

“The desert, for starters. I would have taken them out into the wild open spaces and showed them sunrises and sunsets. I would have tried to give them what I had when I was a boy.”

“Tell me, what was it exactly?”

“Some dangers, some adventures, the sight of distant mountains, a glimpse of the wildlife scurrying in the bushes, the smell of mesquite wood burning in a campfire. I would have liked to tell them wonderful stories. Most of all, I’d have given them a sense of the great solitude of the universe—and its beauty.”

“Did you live with your biological parents?”

“Yes, I did. We were poor enough and overlooked enough that I made it through the screen without being taken away.”

“I’m glad. I was fortunate too. Sometimes when I look at these pictures of my sweeties, I can hardly believe how good we have it. Thank heavens, we Aussies resisted for so long.”

“It amazes me that you delayed it that long.”

“We’re tough when we have to be. The land teaches us that. But city people get soft and dependent. Century by century, our people, like the rest of the world, became more and more lethargic. We didn’t have to struggle any more against hunger, weather, the uncertainties of life in the outback. And then we forgot how to do it. So when resistance was needed, we didn’t know where to find it within ourselves. You’re an independent sort, aren’t you, Neil?”

“I try to be.”

“It can give you horizons.” She paused and a thoughtful look crossed her face. “It has its hazards too.”

“What kind of hazards?”

“A person can be too alone.”

“Seems to me, Maria, that solitude is one of the great resources of life, and an endangered one at that.”

She nodded. “Yes, there’s so little silence. But I think that a person can be in reaction to all that’s mad about our world and go too far in the opposite direction.”

“Become a crazy hermit, you mean?”

“The rugged individualist can be very sane and still lose his way. He can forget he’s part of a community; he might even wash his hands of it. And if that happens, he becomes just another kind of victim.”

I smiled understandingly, though I wasn’t quite sure what she meant. My cabin in the mountains was the great love of my life. My lack of visitors was bliss. Cacti and squirrels were reliable; human beings were not.

“So what’s the desert for you, Maria? I know you’re dreaming of retiring in one when we get home.”

“The desert for me? It’s the same as it is for you, Neil. A place of horizons, where one can think for oneself. I want to make a place where my family could live—where we all could live together on the edge of the infinite. And if we can’t do that, I want it to be a place where they can visit from time to time.”

“And eat your rabbit stew.”

She smiled.

“Do you ever visit the desert in a DEC?” I asked.

She gave the question some thought before answering. “I used to. After a while, I didn’t like what it was doing to me.”

“I know what you mean. I tried it once, and that was enough.” I laughed. “Fantasy—especially
very
convincing fantasy—is unreality. And unreality can really screw you up.”

Her eyes pooled with tears, and for a moment she seemed to forget I was there. She stared down at the photos, shuffling and reshuffling them in different order. Finally, with trembling hands, she put them back into her purse.

Day 2647
:

I went swimming at my usual hour, the middle of the night. I had completed a dozen of my geriatric laps by the time Paul arrived. He pretended to ignore me, dove from the high diving board, and completed twenty of his own stupendous laps before he stopped for a break and swam to the side of the pool where I sat with my legs dangling in the water.

“Hello, Dr. Hoyos. Is good swim?”

“A good swim, Lieutenant Commander Yusupov.”

Pia told me his rank some time ago. In the flight crew hierarchy, he is two ranks below the Captain, one of six lieutenant commanders, the heads of flight divisions. He is head of Navigation.

“You are catch breath?” he asked.

I nodded and patted my towel.

In a low voice, he said, “More?”

“More. In it, you’ll read about a conversation I had with Pia a couple of days ago.”

“She tell me. We have supper at Euro restaurant on A. No Russia food there. But French is good.”

“I want to say personally to you what I told her, and what I recorded in my journal. I want to tell you that I am very proud of you.”

He was standing chest-deep in the water with his arms folded on the tiles. He cocked his head and gazed at me, his expression grave and attentive.

“Thank you for it”, he said quietly.

The remainder of the swim went as usual. When we were preparing to leave the pool, he murmured, “It is good Pia have you. You are like
papa
for her.”

I digested this silently and returned to my room.

Day 2648
:

Where on earth did I get that paternal feeling? Absorbed by osmosis from my
Papacito
? Probably. I have to say, though, that it wasn’t anything like mimicry of external patterns of behavior. It was just suddenly there.

I found a sheet of paper slipped under my door this morning.

Sorry for my moods. Thank you for your patience. I am angry at the world, and I hope none of it rubbed off on you. Thank you for being a good friend. My parents were killed during a riot in our city of Cuttack, Orissa, many years ago. My brothers and sisters were confiscated by the State. I have never been able to trace them. I escaped to Mumbai and entered university there.

   
Death rules us. Our world has become death’s realm, death’s sovereignty, and this has been accomplished in the name of life, progress, humanity. I thought I could escape the dark cloud of my memories by coming on this voyage. But now I see that we take the world with us wherever we go. I know also that we must resist it. Is it possible? I think it is—no, I hope it is. Each soul is a world, a universe, really. Thus, our ship carries all that is worst about our race and—I hope—all that is best.

   
About the pregnancy terminations, let us call it by its true name. In case you wonder if I am involved—no, I am not. I have never done such things. It is handled by another clinic, on Concourse D. The bodies of children are “recycled”. Do you understand? Death infects everything on board. We are prisoners.

   
A holy man, Fr. Ibrahim, once told me that a slave, if he lives for virtue and if he keeps alive within himself all that is good, is a free man. But a man who serves evil, even if he be lord over all our sad Earth, is a slave. The evil man does not know he is evil. He thinks he is free, while all the while he is the slave of numerous masters, for he is ruled by many lies and vices.

   
We are prisoners, Neil. This ship is a prison. But we are free.

   
Do not forget this.

(It was unsigned.)

Day 2657
:

After our study session this evening, I told Dariush about Pia’s letter. He surprised me by saying that she had informed him some time ago about the same things.

“They call taking a child’s life ‘recycling’ ”, he said with a look of profound sadness. “Nothing is wasted. Except human lives. Except the annihilation of the concept of the soul.”