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Authors: J. T. McIntosh

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BOOK: Worlds Apart
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"Rog /is/ bad," said Bob Foley gloomily. "Always been bad. I'm sure I don't blame his mother, but -- "

"What are we going to do," Jessie interrupted rather impatiently, "when Pertwee comes beck? Sooner or later he will. He's no hermit. Suppose he walks into Lemon tomorrow. What do we do? What do we say to him?"

"How about 'Hallo---see you're back'?" suggested Brad. "Why don't all you earnest people just let things work themselves out quietly?"

"Because they won't," snapped Jessie. "Sorry, Brad. Didn't mean to shout at you. But you seem to forget everyone isn't like you. If they were, we wouldn't have a government of any kind, and we wouldn't need it. Frankly, I don't think we'd get much done, either."

"Just a minute," said Mary. They listened, not only because she generally had something to say when she spoke, but because they liked her. It was said that even Tom Robertson liked Mary. "Hasn't Brad got a point there, Jessie? Let's stop going round in circles for a moment.

"What is the trouble, anyway? Tension, uneasiness. Old people and young people not pulling well together. Disagreement about our laws. The children growing up and wanting to change things. Didn't Jessie put her finger on the trouble when she said life here was easy? All of us here came from a world that was destroying itself. We're going on the basis that it /has/ destroyed itself by now. So we're afraid, frightened, worried. We feel we have a heavy responsibility.

"Aren't we just taking thins too seriously?"

She looked at each of them in turn. "Jessie was asking for a plan," she went on. "Here's one. Let us all, each of us independently, try to understand the young people better and win their confidence. Just that."

Jessie frowned, unsatisfied. Jim Bentley pursed his lips, apparently not entirely satisfied either. Albert Cursiter looked from one face to another, wondering if they really thought Toni was all bad. Bob Foley stared at the floor, meditating on the ingratitude of children. Jackson took no further interest in the proceedings. He had told them what he thought; a man could do no more.

Only Brad nodded. "Ever considered this, folks?" he inquired. "Who talks of danger and death and dissension and destruction in this community? Who's worried? Who's unhappy? Not the youngsters. We wanted them to multiply, and that's what they're doing. We wanted them to grow crops, and settle down, and make Mundis their home, and so they have. What are we concerned about? Why don't we realize we've done our job, and die, and let them get on with it?"

Two days later the complete Inner Council, young and old, decided on a policy of closer co-operation between all groups.

The next day the whole Council decided that the Gap didn't matter anyway, and voted it out of existence, Pertwee and Toni could come back any time they liked and live where they liked. Robertson was shouted down, not by Rog Foley's party but by the founders.

Everyone was to live happily ever after, by order.

But Alice remarked shrewdly to Rog as they came out of the meeting together: "That wasn't what you wanted, was it?"

"No," Rog admitted.

"You wanted this to build up so that when it broke there would be a real snap, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Rog.

"So what are you going to do now?"

"Retire from politics," sighed Rog, "and raise a family."

6

Eight million miles away, on Secundis, Phyllis Barton was just reaching a basis for action on what Worsley had said to her when she lost the chance quite finally.

On one of the days when the full operational crew of the Clades was on board, a call to attention sounded from all the loudspeakers on the ship. There was only one thing that could mean, and Phyllis guessed at once it was Worsley who was going to play the central part. He had spoken to someone else, been reported and convicted, and she had lost an opportunity.

She fell in step with the others. Every steel corridor resounded to marching feet, until a loudspeaker order told all sections to break step. Girders don't take too kindly to a rhythmic, unified assault on them.

At first Phyllis seethed with self-reproach. Someone was certainly going to profit by Worsley's fall, and it wouldn't be her. But a few minutes thought restored her usual calm. Whoever had cut the ground from under the captain's feet had had more strings to pull than she had -- she'd have done it if she could.

Clades poured from the four locks and formed, with the symmetry and neatness of crystallization, a square six deep. Into the center marched Commodore Corey and -- yes, Worsley, in a uniform stripped of all indication of the rank he had held. With them was Mathers, wearing his ceremonial sword.

Phyllis was at once interested. Something might come of this after all. She had something that might possibly he used against Mathers.

Corey spoke into the microphone, and his voice thundered back from the ship. There was little or nothing to be learned from what he said -- Worsley was a traitor, Mathers had unmasked him, justice would be done. Phyllis knew all that. How had Mathers got real evidence? Naturally, Corey didn't say. The same methods could be used again and again, so long as they weren't freely discussed every time they were successful. Presumably, Mathers had somehow been able to record without Worsley knowing he was recording.

In the middie of the commodore's speech Worsley tried to grab his gun. It was futile; Mathers spun him back before he was near Corey.

And at the end Corey pointed dramatically to Mathers, who flicked out his sword. Muttering stopped. If one closed one's eyes one might, for all the sound there was, have been alone on the bare, pitted field.

The point of the sword made neat, rapid passes in the air. Worsley was held now, but it wasn't necessary. The ignominy of cowardice would have held him steady and straight. A neat square of skin was bared, unbroken by the point. Phyllis saw with disgust that though Worsley was standing steadily enough, he couldn't prevent the flesh of his stomach from shivering convulsively.

Mathers made a quick thrust, and it was over. Or rather, it was begun. Writhing on the ground Worsley was still some hours from death, but short of medical attention which he wouldn't get, death was certain. Bets had been made on how long he would last, at odds which took into consideration Worsley's constitution and Mathers' probable skill with the sword.

Still no one moved. Phyllis didn't like this part much, yet it was undeniably exciting.

They were waiting now for Worsley to scream. If he died without a sound, even the worst of traitors was accorded a decent burial. It seldom happened, however. For seconds, minutes, a man might writhe silently, determined not to make a sound. But sooner or later, knowing there were hundreds of eyes on him, hundreds of Clades waiting for him to voice his agony, he would make the slightest of sounds and then, the dam burst, scream until his lungs were raw. Then he would be left alone.

One could feel Worsley's resistance being drawn tighter and tighter. Still there was no sound. Murmuring wouldn't start again until he broke, or until it was obviously near the end and he sank visibly. Many Clades were sorry for a man beaten by unconsciousness, a man who made no sound until he didn't really know what was going on; and then moaned.

Seven and a half minutes after the stroke Worsley screamed once, sharply. There were five seconds filled with the murmured satisfaction of men who had won bets and grunts of men who had lost. Then Worsley was moaning steadily, horribly.

The Clades streamed back into the ship.

Fear struck Phyllis's heart at the realization of the step up Mathers would take. Suppose he did really want her, as she had sometimes suspected. He had only to break her as an officer, and her day of privilege would be over -- she would return to the child-bearing cattle from among whom she had emerged before she was old enough to have children. Then, of course, she would be his, as, when, and how he liked.

It was supposed not to happen, but it did. Marge Henley had been senior to Phyllis six years since. Sloan had caught her out in minor faults once, twice, three times, and she became just a creature again, and Sloan's whenever he wished.

None of that was admitted, but that didn't prevent the threat to Phyllis from being real. It was tooth-and-claw survival. She had to break Mathers before he broke her.

If only, she thought, if only Corey would decide that it was time to go to Mundis. There would be action then, and as long as anything was happening something might be made of it. It was in inaction that Phyllis was helpless, hated and distrusted by her colleagues because she was a fellow officer and therefore a rival, young and successfu] and therefore dangerous, and perhaps worst of all, a woman who could not be treated like a woman, like a superior sort of animal.

III

1

Dick, said Bentley, "go and see if you can find Rog Foley."

Dick looked puzzled. "You want him here?"

"Yes."

"How about June?"

"Not unless Foley wants her. Or -- wait."

He hadn't considered June. Nevertheless, she was a factor. It was said that Rog was acting as if she really mattered in his life. Bob Foley growled about it and said Rog must have some scheme in which she figured -- Rog couldn't love anybody but himself.

"Yes," said Bentley. "Get her too."

He waited outside the laboratory. He sat on a wooden seat placed in the sun, but he didn't get chairs for the others, knowing they would prefer to sit on the grass.

Dick was back in a few minutes with the Foleys. Bentley looked keenly at them. Rog was unhurried, casual; June rather excited. She knew something was happening, and she was included because she was Rog's wife. She was very neat and clean, and looked happy.

Rog nodded respectfully to Bentley before he sat down. That was one of the odd things about Rog. He observed all the little niceties which one would have expected to mean nothing to him. Perhaps that was why he observed them, Bentley thought. He liked the way Rog held June's arm as she settled herself on the ground beside Bentley's chair.

"You know why I asked you here?" Bentley asked. He didn't address anyone in particular.

"I knew you were going to talk to Dick," said Foley, "because you asked the Inner Council's permission, and got it. "But you said nothing about including us."

"Dick would tell you anyway, wouldn't he?"

Rog nodded.

"You're working for power," said Bentley, looking directly at Rog, who stared back unblinkingly. "Some people seem to object to that. I don't. Ambition is natural and inevitable. Back on Earth you would have worked for power and success and security, because back on Earth they often came together. Here you've got security -- everyone has. Success doesn't matter much; you've only got power to work for. Well, why not? You're on the Council, of course. Now you're on the Inner Council. One day you'll be President -- you could hardly help that if you tried. I hope you don't try to be President too soon, that's all."

"It's a pity," Rog observed, "that more of the founders aren't as reasonable as you."

"Because I agree with you?"

"Because you agree with me when I'm right."

"You don't think your father, is reasonable, for example?"

"How could I?"

Bentley didn't pursue that. "You know what I'm going to say. At least you know the purpose. I don't want you to work towards atomic power. So I'm going to tell you why not.

"Can you imagine what Earth was like? Not the superficial picture, but what went on underneath? Millions of people. By our standards, very little space. Fifty houses built on top of each other, a million people living in a space we would call a fair-sized field. Everybody having to fight to stay alive, Having to be better than the next man."

His eyes moved to June. "Women too. Setting a dozen goals against each other. Better jobs, more money, more clothes, a better apartment, marriage, more leisure. It was a life you couldn't do anything to change, June. If you didn't want that life, you could die, that was all. If you didn't have a good job you couldn't live in a nice apartment and wear nylon stockings and new dresses, hats, and shoes, and Rog would never notice you."

"I don't see what you're getting at," said Rog.

"Neither do I. I'm not trying to prove anything. I don't understand that life any more than you do, Nobody could. It was too complicated. You didn't try to understand it. You just lived it.

"It was all built on machines. In the morning you were wakened up by a machine that was made two thousand miles away in a factory employing a thousand people. You got out of bed -- it would take half an hour to tell you how the bed came to be made by a dozen different industries. You took off your pajamas. They came from a factory too. Hardly anybody made a single thing any more. They made things by the thousand, all exactly the same. You had a shower in water piped from a reservoir miles away, under the streets, up to the top of the building you were living in, down to your cistern, and out of the sprinkler when you turned a tap. You used soap made in another factory from the action of caustic soda on animal or vegetable oils or fats, and you didn't even know what it was, except soap. You didn't know it assisted solution in water and reduced surface tension, because you hadn't time to know things like that.

"You dressed in shorts, vest, pants, shirt, tie, socks, shoes, various pins, cuff links, pull-over, coat, hat, and all the other things I've forgotten. You ate breakfast, the component parts of which had traveled more thousands of miles in trains and vans and trucks and had then been processed and canned and wrapped.

"You did everything in a hurry became if you weren't at the office at nine you might be fired and then you'd have to look for another job. You wouldn't get any money while you were looking for another job, and when you got it you'd still have to be there to do it at nine o'clock in the morning. So June would be helping you to be at the office at nine. She hadn't taken time to dress, but had put on a wrap over her pajamas. She would have leisure to dress after she got you off to work.

"You went down the elevator, right down into the basement where your car was garaged. I don't know how many thousand parts there were in a car -- quite a few. You drove it up the ramp and into the street. You were surrounded immediately by cars, trucks, streetcars, vans, motor bikes, water wagons, buses -- "

BOOK: Worlds Apart
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