2
Ker-jon felt very refreshed when he awoke. The dream had failed to appear; consequently, he slept well. He wondered idly if the psych-tech, Ab’nath, had decided anything yet. Actually, Ker-jon now regarded his visit to the psych-tech’s office as a little on the impulsive side. He knew how the technicians worked, should thus have expected at least a twenty-four hour delay. Still, just depositing the spool with the psych-tech had relieved him considerably, and surely no harm could come of it.
He showered, shaved, glanced at the wall-chronometer. Nine. One to go—
So—in just three hours—it all would be over. By then they’d have gained control of the ship, or their martyred corpses would start on their eternal flight through space. If a third alternative presented itself, Ker-jon failed to consider it.
He heaped his plate with succulent synthetics in the crowded dining room, then decided he didn’t feel much like eating. Once he caught a glimpse of Cluny-ann, but she sat far across the room, in earnest conversation with three tall strong women who probably were her squad leaders.
Nine forty-five....
Ker-jon crossed to the cashier’s window, gave the woman mutant a six-credit slip, pocketed his change, left the dining room. He knew of no other way to kill time. He’d waited at the cashier’s window, picking at his teeth, striking up meaningless conversation with the woman. Not accustomed to talk with a non-mutant, she’d been awkward. Now he still had fifteen minutes, and the way he felt, it would seem like hours.
He strode rapidly down the corridor, past the door to the astro-room. Nothing there, not yet. Too early.
He reached the ramp which led to ‘ponics. Two men lolled there, insolently. Green-uniformed men—police. Why?
Ker-jon’s palms were clammy when he reached them, but he tried to walk between them indifferently. They came together, barring his way. They didn’t say a word.
“I’m on duty in ’ponics in ten minutes,” Ker-jon told them.
“That’s interesting,” one said.
“Are you looking for anyone in particular?”
“Yes.”
“Well, will you let me through?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you’re the guy we’re looking for or not.”
“Nine minutes,” Ker-jon said; “it’s important that I’m on time.”
“Have you got a name, friend?”
“Bio-tech first class Ker-jon, hydroponics division.”
“Ker-jon, eh? Come with us.”
One policeman eased a needle-gun from his belt, the other wrapped a big hand around Ker-jon’s elbow. “Come on.”
“What did I do?”
“Don’t ask me. This is just a job, but I’m sure they’ll let you know.” The man was snickering.
Ker-jon pulled his arm free. “Well, you tell me where to report; I’ll go later.”
“You promise?” said the man with the gun, smiling vapidly.
“Yes.”
“That’s good! He promises. Come on now!”
Ker-jon grunted, relaxed. The man’s gun-hand wavered, only for a moment, but it was enough. Ker-jon swung his right fist up and felt his knuckles bruise against the man’s jaw. Without waiting to see the effects, he darted for the ‘ponics door and inserted his key.
Something crashed against his legs, behind the knees, and he stumbled against the door, striking his head sharply. When he came away he found himself reeling dizzily on hands and knees. The man who had tackled him scrambled off the floor first, waited while Ker-jon clambered half-way up. A heavy boot exploded against his face, then seemed to explode all over again inside his skull. He fell flat on his stomach, hands clawing at the floor feebly.
He got up groggily, felt the caked blood stiffening the skin of his face. His wrist-chronometer’s dial marked off eleven hours and thirty minutes!
A withered old albino man peered at him anxiously, his face as white as the fungi which sometimes grow, if you are not careful, in the ‘ponics room. His pink eyes blinked often against the strong day-period light. Ker-jon couldn’t guess his age—eighty, perhaps.
“I see you’re awake.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“A counter-revolutionary, young man.”
“What?”
“Don’t be surprised; don’t think your little revolution was such a closely-guarded secret that no one knew about it. For one, the Mutant-maker knew. The revolution was an abortive failure, I am sorry to say.”
Ker-jon looked at him dully. “What happened?”
“Nothing much. The Mutant-maker had his forces deployed all along the line. Flam-harol didn’t have a chance. Twenty-four mutants were killed, and eighteen women. Another two-score injured.”
“Cluny-ann?”
“Who? Oh yes, the leader of the women. She’s all right, I think. But she said something about tearing you apart limb from limb if she found you. It seems you weren’t where you should have been, and for that as much as anything else the revolution backfired. It seems you disappeared.” The old man chuckled softly.
“The police took me. So many dead....”
“Police—no! Police uniforms, but counter-revolutionaries, I assure you. Thanks to psych-tech Ab’nath, we got to you in time. Probably, the revolution would have failed either way, but more pointless carnage would have resulted.”
“Damn you!” Ker-jon said bitterly. “You stand there yapping about what might or might not have happened. Forty days of planning went into that revolution, and all the dreams and hopes of so many mutants—”
The albino blinked. “Ah yes, forty days. Do you know how old I am, Ker-jon? I’m eighty-seven. I was one of the earlier mutants, and I’ve stood this thing a long time. I didn’t want any scatterbrained scheme to knock the legs out from under a plan which is calculated to do more than you dream. How old are you, Ker-jon?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Just a baby, and—”
“Go to hell,” said Ker-jon, rising. “I’m going to find Cluny-ann. Maybe we can salvage something. Maybe—”
“Sit down, will you?” The two uniformed men came in, swaggering. One motioned Ker-jon back into a chair with his needle-gun, and Ker-jon sat down. The other said: “I’m sorry we had to hit you. But you fought, and you didn’t give us any choice.”
Wearily, Ker-jon turned to the old man. “Just where do you fit in? Are you working for the Mutant-maker?”
“I said we are counter-revolutionaries. We stood opposed to your plans, because you favored the wrong fight, at the wrong time, with the wrong people. Simple?” He chuckled again, a very irritating sound. “No, I suppose not. Perhaps psych-tech Ab’nath can help explain. Will someone call him?”
The little balding man with the watery eyes entered the room. “I’m here,” he said. “Ah, I see you have Ker-jon,” he smiled, handed a sheet of paper to the prisoner. “Here, you might be interested in this.”
Ker-jon scanned it rapidly. Yesterday, yes, he’d have been interested. But not today—too much had happened since then.
Subjects: Bio-technician first class Ker-jon, hydroponics division.
Dream: (An objective description of the recurrent dream.)
Conclusions: a) Both Ker-jon and his betrothed, Cluny-ann, appear as mutants in the dream-sequence. Four votes for an unstable, neurotic personality; eleven for obvious feelings of sympathy with the mutants; one abstention. Alternative two is thus a logical certainty.
b) The bell-jar machinery is a meaningless bit of gadgetry which defies analysis. Sixteen votes for symbolic representation of the Mutant-making machinery, esoteric and unknown to all technicians save the bio-techs, mutant-making division. Conclusion a logical certainty.
c) Ker-jon destroys the bell-jar with brute force. Five votes for an un-neurotic personality’s desired destruction of a major social institution. Eleven for uneasiness and a rigid anxiety concerning the revolution, for subconscious doubts on Ker-jon’s part that a frontal assault against the Mutant-maker will solve the Ark’s problem. Alternative two a logical certainty.
d) The warped prismatic effect in the background is crucial. The red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet of the spectrum is replaced by green-blue-red-orange-yellow, with indigo and violet out of the sequence entirely. Three votes for mistaken knowledge concerning the “rainbow” of the ancients, and for no other significance; three votes for a representation of star-colors (note that indigo and violet, not visible in any stellar object seen through the astro-port, are entirely lacking)—three votes for a representation of star-colors for the subject’s desire to associate himself with the stars, hence with the void of space, hence with death; four abstentions; five for an immersed subconscious conviction that our knowledge of the “Rainbow” and hence of the physical sciences is lacking, and that this lack of knowledge may be crucial to the entire problem. No alternative a logical certainty, and while the conclusion is indeterminate, the final alternative is preferred....
Comments: Faced with violent action which his subconscious mind refused to accept as a satisfactory answer, Ker-jon also was confronted by a recurrent dream fostered by that subconscious rejection. Ker-jon’s subconscious recognized the pending revolution as (1) a displacement in the order of events, a striving to conquer effects rather than causes and to leave the whole solution indeterminate, and (2) an inadequate course of action directed in a frontal assault against the most obvious effect of the hinted-at ailments which afflict the Ark.
Solution: Not determined, because conclusion (d) remains inconclusive. (Once he understands his own problems, Ker-jon should be a great help to the counter-revolutionaries—Ab’nath.)
“You see,” Ab’nath said, taking the slip of paper back from Ker-jon, “your subconscious mind couldn’t accept the pending revolution. It felt something was lacking. In that sense, then, your dream was a flight from reality, a fugue. But it had a constructive aspect as well. It—”
“I know,” Ker-jon scoffed. “Sure. You take one small, insignificant part of the dream, and because it ties in with your own theories, you blow it up out of all proportion.”
The psych-tech shrugged. “Just how did you know the real order of the spectrum, anyway?”
“I didn’t know that I knew it! When I was a child I read a book on the physical sciences, just to be contrary, I guess.”
“Evidently, the knowledge remained in your subconscious, and—”
“So what? You have a vague notion about a deficiency, that’s all. So you destroy a budding revolt which could have restored equality to the Ark....”
All this time, the old albino man had been listening silently. Now he said: “The revolution was doomed to failure, Ker-jon; don’t you see that? Even if it achieved its aim, what would have happened then? We live in a static environment, with no external challenges to keep our culture going. If you won, the mutants would have taken over; tyranny would have exchanged hands, that’s all. I’m a mutant myself, but I say this: if you had succeeded, the mutants would have treated non-mutants, in time, in the same manner the non-mutants treat them. Merely a reversal of roles. Would you have wanted that?”
“No, but—”
“Wait; let me finish. We have a tremendous external challenge, only we fail to see it. What is the Ark, Ker-jon? An artificial world, a manufactured environment. A vessel taking us from someplace to someplace else. Do you know where we came from?”
“Urth—”
“Yes, but what is Urth? We don’t know. It’s in the old books, but no one reads them. And where are we going? Even I don’t know that, and I have tried to find out. The books are not indexed, and it might take one man years to find out. Working together, a group of men could shorten that time to months.
“Further, what is the void of space outside? Mere blackness, or—I don’t know. And the stars, the little pin-points of light we see, what about them? Are they worlds? Was Urth a star; do we now travel towards another one? Again, I don’t know. But we can find out. There is our challenge, Ker-jon. There is the stimulus which can unite the Ark and put a permanent stop to internal squabbles. Are you blind to that?”
“I’m not blind to anything, old man! All I know is this: the revolutionaries are confined. Maybe they await death—thanks to you. I also know that more men and women each day are exposed forcibly in the Chamber of Change—which means that a new generation of mutants will be born. Any challenge on a purely abstract level sounds awful silly, ridiculously unimportant, pedantically trivial.... Umm-mm, never mind. You just don’t understand.”
“Wait,” said the albino. “A compromise, Ker-jon. If you can rescue your fellows, what then?”
“You want an honest answer? I think I’d still hate you and what you stand for, a tired old man with old, meaningless ideas—”
“Can you rescue your friends alone?”
“I don’t know; I can try.”
“And wind up wherever they are, awaiting death with them?”
“I said I can try.”
“Well, if you had help—let us say, if my two ’policemen’ cooperated, you might pull the whole thing off by trickery, don’t you think, with no bloodshed at all?”
“It’s possible,” Ker-jon admitted.
“A bargain. We’ll help you, but then you must help us. Flam-harol is the revolutionary leader, but you carry almost as much weight with the revolutionaries as he does. Very well, if you rescue your people, if the Ark falls into your hands, will you then cooperate with us?”
“Why the hell didn’t you offer that before the revolution? All this wouldn’t have happened.”
The albino smiled. “You’d have laughed at us, even as you’re probably laughing to yourself now. But in this case we have something concrete to offer. Is it a bargain?”
“Sure,” Ker-jon said wearily. “We need you now. It’s a bargain.”