4
Ker-jon said, “Hello.”
The albino blinked rapidly. “Ker-jon, is it not?”
“It looks like you have another recruit. That is, if you’re still in business.”
The albino chuckled. “We’re in business, young man. As a matter of fact, we got an additional recruit the day before yesterday. You know her, I think.”
Cluny-ann came in from the next room, looking very trim and pretty in her jumper. “It’s about time you woke up,” she said, but then Ker-jon took her hand and held it, and soon she forgot all about being contrary. She said, “Wi’son-gil says we’re going to have a rough time of it.”
“That’s true,” Wi’son-gil agreed, adjusting a pair of dark glasses over his pink eyes, then sighing with satisfaction. “It would have been simpler had the revolution failed. Enough people hated the rule of the Mutant-maker before the revolution; probably, instilling the intellectual challenge of the physical sciences would have been enough. Now, unfortunately, it won’t.”
Ker-jon frowned. “I’m not sure I understand. What do you mean?”
“Flam-harol is developing a militant organization and a more rigid caste-system than we’ve ever had before; you know that. What we’ve got to do—what we’ve been trying to do all along—was to unite the mutants and the non-mutants with a real external challenge. A rebirth of the physical sciences and a subsequent conquest of them would have done it. But not now; now we’ll need something more concrete.
“A serious threat, perhaps. What if the Ark stopped functioning, Ker-jon?”
“Stopped functioning?”
“Of course. We have day-lights. We have night-lights. We have hydroponic gardens supplying both air and food, which, except for a few minor adjustments that the bio-technicians can make, function perfectly in themselves. We have instruments of astrogation, and the same thing applies. We don’t even know where we’re going!
“Damage all that. Damage everything which carries us along so smoothly, and what will happen? We’d either all join together to conquer the new challenge, or we’d perish.”
“You’d take a chance like that?” Ker-jon demanded.
Cluny-ann nodded vigorously. “We have to. It’s either that or we’ll sink lower and lower, until there’s nothing left of civilization.”
“Okay,” Ker-jon spread his hands out wide. “You’re both way ahead of me. How will we do it?”
The albino smiled. “We’ve found the old records which explain how the Ark runs. With them to guide us, we’ll try our hand at sabotage.”
“Hold on. Just hold on! Why do you have to do that? If you have the records, why don’t you simply take control of the machinery and force Flam-harol and his crew to step down.”
The albino shook his head. “That’s precisely what we won’t do. All the Ark has ever had to face was human challenge, one man usurping control from another. That extends down to all levels, Ker-jon. We have to make a complete break with that tradition, or we’ll find ourselves right back where we started from, just as Flam-harol did. Psych-tech Ab’nath will stand behind me on that, and he knows what he’s talking about.”
“You’re telling me,” Ker-jon said, remembering the dream.
“Then it’s agreed. You and the girl will study the records, learn the location and function of each piece of machinery on the Ark. There are just a half dozen of us: Ab’nath, the two ‘policemen’, Cluny-ann, you, myself. When you’re ready we’ll do some fancy tinkering with the key mechanisms. And this is important, Ker-jon: we must be so thorough that, alone and without either additional education or aid from others, we won’t be able to repair the damage. A danger, yes—but that’s the only way it will work.”
Ten days, twenty. Thirty. With Cluny-ann, Ker-jon pored over the old books. Terms swam through his head madly—vectors, constants, laws of thermodynamics, others. He could not hope to understand the vast amount of theory behind them, not now, not yet. But it did not matter. He sought a working knowledge, an engineer’s knowledge, the knowledge of a physical-technician, when there had not been a physical-technician on the Ark for generations. More particularly, a physical-technician bent upon temporary destruction....
Wi’son-gil kept him informed of Flam-harol’s new regime. Discontent everywhere. A riot in the ‘ponics room—quelled. Another in astro—also quelled. But discontent hovered everywhere, with no adequate channel through which to manifest itself. It faded, became bickering; Flam-harol was more powerful every day. Probably, he considered himself benevolent—
Green-uniformed albinos shuffled about the corridors. Their too-white skin looked sickly under the night-lights, but they seemed cocky. Ker-jon ducked around a corner, pulling Cluny-ann with him. “Careful—that one almost spotted us!”
They crept forward, stalking silently on bare feet. Ker-jon had his key to the ‘ponics room, and his heart was pounding furiously when they reached the door. What if Flam-harol had had the lock changed? He chuckled softly. He’d been reading too much about the physical sciences; no one knew how to change a lock! Oh, they could oil it if it clogged with rust, but that was all. Either the old lock remained, or no lock at all.
He inserted his key, twisted, heard the tumblers fall. The door swung in silently.
Past the rows of squat, ugly ‘ponics tanks they walked, the dank vegetation smell heavy on the air. Moisture dotted the water pipes with gleaming droplets, some unknown liquid bubbled in a vat nearby.
They paused at a great shining mound of machinery. “It’s called a generator,” Ker-jon said. “But don’t ask me what it does. I only know it’s crucial. Umm-mm, listen to that.”
The machine throbbed. He’d worked in the ‘ponics room as a bio-tech, and he’d always taken the huge machine and its humming noise for granted. It was there, and that meant it had a purpose. It functioned; all you had to do was put oil into the little hole whenever the sound rose to a shriek. But now the purpose meant something. This generator kept the tanks going, producing air, food, water....
Ker-jon wielded his screw-driver clumsily. Only menials—formerly mutants and now non-mutants—played with such tools. If the Ark passed through a particularly brilliant area of space, if the blackness outside the ports in the astro-room churned into a seething mass of light, the menials used these screw drivers and fastened thin metal shields over the ports.
Insert it there, yes! And twist. See, the little plug comes loose. And now another.
Suddenly, the entire casing fell away, and Ker-jon peered into a maze of intricate wiring. Remove that one, that one, and that one. Careful, don’t touch that or you’ll receive a shock—whatever a shock was—
Without warning, the machine stopped its humming. Nearby, the liquid which bubbled away merrily in its vat gurgled once or twice, then subsided. The silence closed in from all sides.
Three days later, Ker-jon received a summons from Flam-harol. The ridge-head look worried, and he did not try to hide it. “You were a bio-tech first class, hydroponics division. I—I have a job for you.”
“Yes? What’s that?”
“Something happened. I don’t know what, but a machine which used to hum doesn’t do it any longer, and the vegetation in ’ponics looks a little sick. The level in the water-storage units is lowering—”
Ker-jon wondered how long the air would last. He almost sensed a difference, a thickness, a necessity to breathe more deeply, perhaps more rapidly. His imagination, probably, because according to the books, air would continue to be manufactured as long as the plants lasted. “What do you want me to do?” Ker-jon said.
“Fix it, that’s what.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t? Don’t cross me, Ker-jon; I’ll have you detained—”
“That isn’t what I mean. I know the humming machine you’re talking about. I don’t know how it works; no one does. Of course, we can find out. If we study the old records—”
“Bah! Say, do you know any good astro-techs? The machinery in the astro-room doesn’t work. I don’t know the function of that room, Ker-jon, but I’ve heard it’s important.”
“We’ve all heard that, but no one knows why. We could find out, though.”
“How?”
“By studying the old books.” Ker-jon wondered if it had been Ab’nath or the old albino who had tampered with the astro-mechanisms.
Flam-harol got up wearily. “Forget it; forget I called you. I can see you’ll be no help at all. I’ve heard talk about studying the old records. All over the Ark. But man, think! You can’t sit down in a hole someplace and read a book to solve anything. That just isn’t the way things get done.”
“You’ll learn,” Ker-jon said, getting up to leave.
That same afternoon, Wi’son-gil made a mistake. He called a mass meeting, declaring that he knew a way to stop what had caused growing panic on the Ark. If Flam-harol hadn’t become frightened, the panic never would have arisen—Ker-jon knew that. But when you stroll through the now-silent ‘ponics room and see brown-edged, stiffening vegetation where once the place had been warm and richly green, you worry. Especially when you’ve been led to believe, along with everyone else, that everything within the Ark depended on the ‘ponics room.
The crowd gathered, noisily at first, but the old albino quieted them. Ker-jon realized with some surprise that the man could be an impressive figure. Small and thin, he yet maintained an air of confidence. His fine white hair framed a gaunt, thin-featured face, and from a distance the pink eyes almost seemed alive with fires.
But mostly it was the voice—calm, soothing, sure of itself, a father talking to his children, telling them of the wonders of a lost science, of the role it once had played in the construction of the Ark, of a time when their ancestors had lived elsewhere, not on the Ark at all, of a time in the indeterminable future when they would leave the confines of a tight little world for one where a man could spend his whole lifetime walking and never quite reach the other side. Telling them, too, of the role that lost science must now play again, to repair the Ark. Telling them that they must strive together to master this tool of their past in order to build their future, to learn what they were, and where and why and how, to use this knowledge for the tasks that lay ahead.
He had them spellbound, weaving fanciful legends of the past and a place called Urth, explaining their greatness to them and their destiny to conquer a far place in the name of mankind which was all of them and infinitely more. And telling them, above all, that ridge-head must be brother to scaled mutant, and both to albino, and all to non-mutants. They half-wanted that, anyway; they’d had enough of fighting all their lifetimes, and what had been lacking was a common cause for all of them.
Almost, it worked. But Flam-harol appeared in the meeting room, stalking in with his armed guards—not albinos, not now when he expected troubles. But with ridge-heads, big, powerful, naked to their waists and ready for trouble, the huge muscles bulging....
“Stop that man!” he cried.
Murmurs in the crowd, but no one moved.
Wi’son-gil kept right on speaking.
Ker-jon realized the ridge-head’s intention too late. He stood just below the dais, eyes intent upon the old albino. But something made him turn, and he bellowed a warning.
Flam-harol had raised his needle-gun.
Things happened fast after that. Cluny-ann must have seen the danger too, for she pushed her way through the crowd, elbowing people out of her way, reached the ridge-head. They began to grapple, great-thewed mutant and slim, fair-haired girl.
It didn’t last long. Ker-jon leaped upon the dais, throwing himself at the albino, pulling him down. It was then that Flam-harol fired.
Ker-jon felt the needle brush past his cheek, saw a growing stain of red on the albino’s jumper. The old man sagged to the floor, the faintest trace of a smile on his lips. When Ker-jon kneeled beside him and felt for the heartbeat, the old man was dead.
Confused, the crowd milled about. People jostled one another, some shouted angrily. Meaningless action without a leader—
Ker-jon tore his way through the mob. Cluny-ann lay in a sobbing heap on the floor and the ridge-head pointed his weapon at her, shouting for his men to disperse the mob. None of them moved. Undecided, they stood there uncomfortably, shuffling their feet. Clearly, they hadn’t responded favorably to cold-blooded murder.
Flam-harol whirled, swinging his needle-gun around to face Ker-jon, but he didn’t make it. They locked together, stumbled, fell to the floor and rolled about. The needle-gun clattered away harmlessly. Two or three ridge-heads tried to intervene, but growling ominously now, the crowd kept them away.
He had a fight on his hands, Ker-jon knew. And sometimes an immensely complex situation could boil down to something as elemental as that. If he lost, the old order would remain; if he won....
The thoughts hindered him, and he longed to drive them from his mind. Just a fight, that was all. Like any of a dozen brawls he had had because of his quick temper. But Flam-harol was superbly-muscled, like all ridge-heads—and strong, strong! He forced Ker-jon over, his back to the floor, and he felt strong hands closing about his throat and a rising-falling motion which pounded his head against the hard metal.
Out of a spreading haze, Flam-harol’s face leered at him—
Ker-jon groped upward, blindly, got his fingers at the corner of the mutant’s mouth, pushed in and tugged. Flam-harol screamed, rolled off him.
They stood up, glaring at each other. Ker-jon’s breath came in ragged gasps. He wanted to rest, rest....
His hands felt weary, so weary that he hardly could lift them, and that was no good, for hard fists pummelled his head, his shoulders, his chest. He struck back, under the bigger man’s guard, pounding trip-hammer blows against his belly.
Grunting, Flam-harol gave ground, lowered his hands to protect his mid-section. Ker-jon darted around him, swiftly, never standing still long enough to be struck, flicking out with his left hand and keeping the mutant off balance by cuffing his jaw. The hands raised again, formed a shield for Flam-harol’s face. Hit the stomach, then, pound it, pound it....
Abruptly, it was over. Flam-harol puffed feebly, tried to catch his breath and failed. He spun about slowly, like a battered top, looking for his foe through bloody eyes. Once and once only, Ker-jon crossed his right fist and felt the knuckles crunch against the mutant’s jaw. Flam-harol stood very still for a moment, one eye wide-open, the other swollen shut. Then he plunged to the floor, and he didn’t try to rise.
After that, the crowd closed in. Flam-harol was a symbol for everything that had been wrong. A symbol for the fight of man against man, when together men should tackle loftier things. They climbed all over him....
“Know what happened today?” Cluny-ann demanded.
“Of course—”
“No, silly. I mean besides us getting married.”
“What?”
“A ridge-head and a non-mutant, working together, patched up the astro-room. Oh, it isn’t perfect yet, not by any means, but it works.”
“And yesterday a couple of scaled mutants and an albino put that generator back together again. They had the books, sure, but I never could have done it. I guess that’s where their aptitude lies.”
“And listen to this! An old albino, a cousin of Wi’son-gil, I think, discovered all the old books on astronomy. He says Urth was a big globe, really big, which moved around a star. We’re going to another globe a lot like it, or our children are—and when we get there—”
“The best part of it all,” Ker-jon said, “is that everyone’s finding the job for which he’s fit. Ab’nath tells me he thinks he wants to become an astronomer.”
Smiling, Ker-jon took the girl’s hand and led her to the library. It was a hell of a place to spend a honeymoon, but there was so much to learn....