Worlds Apart (2 page)

The cats, likewise, had been destroyed, and all the insects. The cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, hens, and dogs had been retained, but a very careful check was kept on every animal, alive or dead. A bitch had merely to wander off and have her litter somewhere, and one day there would be wild dogs everywhere.

At one corner of the village, well clear of it, was the laboratory. It was a solid, square building, made of porous stone but faced with cement. By now the colonists had learned how to make cement from chalk and clay; every so often a kiln was heated and enough clinker was made to last for the next year or so.

The laboratory wasn't used much for research. In the building was a little room which contained, on microfilm, most of what a world had learned of the secrets of the universe. Until the ground covered by the microfilm library was consolidated again, there seemed little point in taking in fresh fields for study. Science was back to the level of elementary chemistry, elementary physics, elementary everything except the things which were no longer studied at all, and mathematics, which was fairly advanced. One could study high mathematics in a primitive culture, and that was what Lemon, for the most part, was.

No, the main purpose of the laboratory was teaching and manufacture, not research. The near scientists among the founder colonists were trying to pass some information on to their children before they died, and some of the understanding of how to use the information.

Except in one field, where they were trying to pass on understanding without any information.

Dick swallowed and coughed nervously before speaking. He and Jim Bentley were alone in the laboratory. They had worked together since Dick was eight, ten years ago. Dick's father, Lionel Smith, had been a biologist and one of the doctors of the original party, and Bentley's friend. Even at the age of eight Dick had been obviously more useful as an assistant to Bentley than working in the fields, tending cattle, or helping to build homes.

All the actual information young Mundans would need for hundreds of years was stored on the microfilm; what Bentley was doing with Dick was ensuring that at least one of the native Mundans would know what to do with those reels of microfilm.

"I've been thinking about atomic theory," Dick said.

"Yes?" murmured Bentley absently. He wasn't primarily a chemist, but he was making up a doctor's prescription as Dick spoke. Bentley always had to be doing something. "Thinking is a good thing, Dick," he said whimsically. "I'm always glad to hear about a boy of your age doing it."

"But look," said Dick impulsively. "There's gaps in what I know. Naturally. And there are gaps in the microfilm data. Some of them wouldn't bother me, some I could forget about if I had the very slightest knowledge of what you call nuclear fission . . . "

Abruptly Bentley stopped being abstracted and became very keen and alert.

" . . . and some still would," Dick went on hastily. "But what I mean is -- how am I supposed to know what's legitimate research and what isn't? I can work freely on nearly everything I like, but some things I'm not supposed to touch. And I'm not told enough to know when I'm touching them! I can appreciate why you think we'd be much better off without atomic energy -- "

"It's debatable," said Bentley quietly, "whether you're better off without atomic energy. But we decided long ago there was no question that you'd all be much better off /alive/. Atomic energy means death, one way or another, sooner or later. If we don't help you to find it, you won't -- not for a long time. It took thousands of years back on Earth. Maybe by the time it's found again, people will know better how to use it. We're hoping so, anyway."

"Yes, but don't you see?" said Dick eagerly, encouraged by the mild reception. "You won't be here always. Neither will I."

The last three words came out involuntarily. He hadn't meant to say them. It had never occurred to him that he too would grow old and die. But the idea somehow fired his imagination.

"Suppose I believe that I shouldn't try to discover anything about atomic power. Suppose I try to pass on that caution. What force is it going to have for the next Dick Smith?"

Bentley smiled. Like all the founder colonists, he was fifty-four. He was small and spare, his thick, coarse hair iron gray. "None, I suppose," he said. "But . . . "

He laughed outright. Dick smiled nervously. Bentley didn't often laugh. He had a strong sense of humor, but he usually kept his amusement to himself. "Dick." he said, "I have to be careful what I tell you about atomics. You know that, don't you? I'm not only keeping things back because I personally don't think you should know them, though I don't, but because I'd be on the carpet before the Council if I did tell you them."

"But you're on the Inner Council." said Dick.

"A lot of good that would do me. John Pertwee was President, once, and you know what happened to him."

He looked down thoughtfully at the waxed table top. Finally he said: "I don't want to tell you anything that would be a clue, Dick, but you can take it from me that if we changed our minds now and went all out for atomic power, telling you young people all we know, it wouldn't be accomplished any sooner than in the time of your grandchildren."

Dick was sensitive and reserved. And like many sensitive, reserved people, he was also intuitive. His head came up at that as he sensed an evasion. Bentley hadn't hesitated; he spoke confidently and decisively enough. Yet there was evasion. As if what he said was true, but unimportant.

Bentley went on, however, interrupting Dick's thought that if it was true it didn't mean much, considering that the same thing could probably be said of the production of high- grade steel or camera lenses.

"Atomic power." said Bentley, "is discovered and used in a culture that has hundreds of high-precision factories, unlimited electric power -- for, of course, you can't use atomic power to discover atomic power -- technicians trained in a little bit of a little bit of a branch of one section of knowledge, and economic competition. You don't even know what economic competition is, Dick, for we've never used money here.

"That's why I laughed. When you're older, passing on some of what you've learned as I'm doing, you won't really have to prohibit atomic power."

"But it's prohibited in the Constitution."

"And rightly. Because if we wrote down all we know, and your children and their children worked on the problem, it would be solved one day. We hope it never is.

"Before you were born, Dick, we even wondered if we should strangle all physical science, as a safeguard. Men can live quite well in a primitive state. They can even build a high culture without physics and chemistry and mathematics.

"Well, you know we decided against that. But we were quite definite on this -- no atomic energy. Not now or ever. Don't talk about this again, Dick. I understand, but others won't. They'll start talking about the death penalty whenever you mention atomics. They'll mean it, too. Understand?"

Dick understood. He wasn't a hero. He shivered at the thought of dying, as one or two people had died, for violating the Constitution.

He talked rapidly of something else.

About half an hour later, just before the rain, he left the laboratory and went home. He had his own house. His father had died when he was nine, his mother six years earlier. Since their father died, Dick and his sister had lived alone. He should have married a year, possibly two years since, but he had used the fact that he had to look after June, as an excuse not to.

Lemon was quite a handsome littie township. When they began to build it the founder colonists had had the experience of building New Paris. They knew some of the things not to do, and they knew what a merely functional collection of dwellings would look like. Also, there had been no hurry to build Lemon. The men and women who were building it were still living in New Paris, and only when several families could move to Lemon did New Paris begin to die.

There was no need for paved or tarred streets. The Mundan rains were so regular, so predictable, that they hardly affected the life of Lemon at all. Everything was hot and dry in the early afternoon; you got under cover about three o'clock and for an hour or two the heavens poured warm, clear water everywhere in a solid sheet. Then abruptly the rain stopped, and by the time the people appeared in the streets again there were dry spots here and there.

Apart from the rains, Mundis's water was almost all underground. None of the young Mundans had ever seen a lake or even a pool. The idea of a sea was a very difficult thing to get across to them, even with the aid of pictures. That was one of the many gaps of understanding between the founder colonists and their children. There was not one of the old people who could not swim; there was not one of the young people who could.

The street was hard earth, and as the years went by, the rains wearing it down and the sun baking it, it became harder and harder. Mundan soil was a sort of two-way valve. When there was too much water the soil let it drain straight through, easily and rapidly. But when the rain stopped and drying stared, the soil cracked, became a far better capillary agent than the soil of Earth, and sucked back moisture from the underground springs.

In laying the street the colonists had simply reversed the procedure of Earth. It wasn't necessary to lay drains to lead the water down or away; instead, they had laid traps to prevent its coming up again. The soil itself was a better drain than they could construct, All they had to do was prevent its drawing the water back again when it dried.

Few people talked to Dick as he made his way home. They didn't greet him because, sunk in his thoughts, he wasn't likely to notice them. To some extent people were already a little in awe of Dick. He knew more than anyone else of his generation. He was supposed to be brilliant. When he was silent merely because he was shy, he was often given credit for thinking deep thoughts.

He looked up when he was still some distance from his house and saw Rog Foley at the door. He stopped abruptly and hid in the shadow of the nearest hut. That was done automatically -- Dick didn't work out why he should hide from Rog or why he shouldn't. He saw June open the door, but Rog didn't go in. He merely spoke to June for a few seconds and then went down the road.

Dick waited for him to get clear, then hurried to his house and went inside. June was shaking out a party dress she was making.

"You just missed Rog," she said. "We're having a party here tonight."

"Oh." Dick's heart sank. He would have to tell Rog he hadn't dared to pursue the question of atomic power with Bentley. It didn't occur to him to object to Rog's inviting a party to Dick's house, That was normal. Dick's house was the usual place for parties, for it was one of the few where no older people lived. Rog's was too small.

He noticed suddenly that June was reddening under his gaze. He hadn't even been thinking about her; he had been staring at her simply because she was the brightest thing in the room, and the only thing that moved. Now he looked more closely. He didn't see what she had to blush about. Then something struck him about the ket she was working on. "Oh," he said. "Like that, is it?"

June bent her head over her work, but he could see her ears flush.

New conventions grew up with the children born and maturing on the new world. The young people were expected to have children as soon as they could, and brought up in the knowledge that it was a great thing, an honor. But it was left to every girl to deride when she was no longer a child and ready to accept womanhood. She generally did it quietly, easily and naturally by her appearance, what she wore, what she did, what she said -- without ever having to say, in so many words, that she was ready.

June still wore the white shorts and loose blouse of a child as she worked. But the party ket on which she was working had starched blinkers, and blinkers were definitely not for children. It was trimmed with lace, and children didn't wear lace. The cuffs at the bottom were very full and graceful, and the whole thing was in pink and cherry -- not the most subdued hues possible.

The outfit said quite plainly that June was ready.

"Abner?" asked Dick.

"No," said June almost inaudibly, not looking up. "Nobody in particular. And shut up."

"All right. But you could do worse than Abner. and I think he's sort of counting on you."

"No one has any right to count on me."

Dick stared at her bent head, a little puzzled.

3

On the second planet, Secundis, things were quite different -- naturally.

The people on the Mundis had thought they were the last to leave Earth. The people on the Clades knew they were the last to leave Earth.

And it was a very different Earth they left.

Phyllis Barton had never seen Earth, but she was as much a product of its frenzied, despairing death agonies as all the rest of the Clades. As she stood before the officer of the watch aboard the ship and saluted smartly, there wasn't a hint in her expression that such a thing as emotion existed.

"Routine survey at the observatory completed, sir," she reported. "No sign of life on Mundis. And we're at closest approach -- less than eight million miles. Nothing observed that suggests a settlement."

"Of course not," said Captain Worsley. "From the surface of Secundis we can't expect to see anything smaller than a large city. It's high time Corey made up his mind, took up the ship, and went and had a look. Oh, it's all right," he went on easily, as Phillis stared at him, "there's no recording and the spy-eye here is dead, just at the moment. I know the wiring of the whole ship, which is useful sometimes."

Phyllis was tense, a pulse in her temple throbbing a warning of danger. Worsley had belonged to the technical section until recently, and naturally was used to more lax discipline, more freedom to express opinions. Technicians had to express opinions in their work, and they tended to carry this independence into their thoughts and even their speech.

"No," said Worsley regretfully, "I just can't convince you I'm not an informer, can I? Very likely you'll go straight to Sloan or Corey and repeat every word I've said. It won't do you any good. I cover up well."