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Title: Pilgrims' project
Author: Robert F. Young
Release date: September 14, 2023 [eBook #71646]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc, 1957
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PILGRIMS' PROJECT ***
PILGRIMS' PROJECT
By ROBERT F. YOUNG
Illustrated by EMSH
_A man under sentence of marriage
would be lucky to have a girl like
Julia assigned to him--or would he?_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity June 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
ROBERT F. YOUNG _works in a machine shop by day, and at night
goes home and writes anti-machine stories!_ Pilgrims Project _is
different: not so much anti-machine per se, it is still a vigorous
argument in favor of the individual human spirit and against
standardization. It is also, of course, a thoroughly exciting
story--with one of the most intriguing villains in all sf!_
CHAPTER I
"I'd like to apply for a wife," I said.
The Marriage Administration girl inserted an application blank into
the talk-typer on her desk. Her eyes were light blue and her hair was
dark brown and she was wearing a Mayflower dress with a starched white
collar.
"Name and number?"
"Roger Bartlett. 14479201-B."
"Date of birth?"
"January 17, 2122."
"What is your occupation, Mr. Bartlett?"
"Senior Sentry at the Cadillac Cemetery."
She raised her eyes. Her hair was combed tightly back into a chignon
and her face looked round and full like a little girl's.
"Oh. Have there been any exhumings recently, Mr. Bartlett?"
"Not at Cadillac," I said.
"I'm glad. I think it's a shame the way the ghouls carry on, don't you?
Imagine anyone having the effrontery to rob a sacred car-grave!"
Her voice sounded sincere enough but I got the impression she was
ridiculing me--why, I couldn't imagine. She could not know I was lying.
"Some day they'll rob one grave too many," I said flatly, "and earn the
privilege of digging their own."
She lowered her eyes--rather abruptly, I thought. "Last place of
employment?"
"Ford Acres."
The longer I looked at her, the more she affected me. The little-girl
aspect of her face was misleading. There was nothing little-girlish
about her lithe body, and her stern, high-bosomed dress could not
conceal the burgeoning of full breasts or the breathless sweep of waist
and shoulders.
Illogically, she reminded me of a landscape I had seen recently at a
clandestine art exhibit. I had wandered into the dim and dismal place
more out of boredom than curiosity, and I had hardly gone two steps
beyond the cellar door when the painting caught my eye. It was called
"Twentieth Century Landscape."
In the foreground, a blue river flowed, and beyond the river a
flower-flecked meadow spread out to a series of small, forested hills.
Beyond the hills a great cumulus formation towered into the sky like
an impossibly tall and immaculate mountain. There was only one other
object in the scene--the lofty, lonely speck of a soaring bird.
An impossible landscape by twenty-second century standards; an
impossible analogy by any standards. And yet that's what I thought
of, standing there in Marriage Administration Headquarters, the
stone supporting pillars encircling me like the petrified trunks of a
decapitated forest and the unwalled departments buzzing with activity.
"Can you give us some idea of the kind of wife you want, Mr. Bartlett?"
I wanted to say that I didn't want any kind of a wife, that the only
reason I was applying for one was because I was on the wrong side of
twenty-nine and had received my marriage summons in yesterday's mail.
But I didn't say anything of the sort. It wasn't wise to question
Marriage Administration procedure.
But I didn't take it lying down. Not quite. I said: "The wife I want is
a pretty remote item from the one I'll probably get."
"What we want consciously is invariably different from what we want
unconsciously, Mr. Bartlett. The Marriage Integrator's true benefit
to humanity arises from the fact that it matches marriageable men and
women in accordance with their unconscious rather than with their
conscious desires. However, any information you may care to impart will
be entered on your data card and _might_ influence the final decision."
"I don't know," I said.
And I didn't. The celibacy I had endured rather than apply for a wife
before reaching the maximum age of twenty-nine had resulted in the
total sublimation of my sexual desires. Women had lost reality for
me--at least, until this morning.
* * * * *
I looked around the huge chamber in search of inspiration. The various
departments were cramped with desks and marriage officials, enlivened
here and there by gray- or black-garbed secretaries. The department
next to the one in which I stood constituted the headquarters for the
Marriage Enforcement Police and less than ten feet away from me a gaunt
MEP captain brooded behind an austere marble desk.
Apparently he had been fasting, for his charcoal gray coat hung loosely
on his wide shoulders. His cheeks were cadaverous, his thin lips pale.
His thin nose jutted sharply from his narrow face, giving him a bleak,
hungry look, and his deep, somber eyes intensified the impression.
Those eyes, I realized suddenly, were gazing directly into mine.
So far as I knew, there was nothing about my appearance to pique the
interest of an MEP official. My Roger Williams suit was conventional
enough; I had doffed my black, wide-brimmed hat upon entering the
building and now held it at my waist in the prescribed manner; I was
above average in height, but not noticeably so, and if my yellow hair
and gray eyes failed to match the dour decorum of my clothing, I could
hardly be held responsible for the defection. Nevertheless, there
was something about me that the MEP captain found disagreeable. The
disapproval in his eyes was unmistakable.
"Do you have any ideas at all, Mr. Bartlett?"
The girl's cool blue eyes were a relief after the somber brown ones.
It was like returning from Milton's _Paradise Lost_ to the carefree
_L'Allegro_ of his youth. Abruptly, the inspiration I'd been searching
for materialized--almost at my fingertips.
"Blue eyes," I said. "I'd definitely want her to have blue eyes--and
dark brown hair to go with them. And then I'd want her to have a
round, full face, and shoulders that look good even in a Mayflower
dress."
I saw the telltale pinkness come into her cheeks and I caught the tiny
fluttering of a pulse in her white temple. But all she said was: "What
else, Mr. Bartlett? I presume she would have intellectual as well as
physical qualities."
"Naturally." I knew I was being presumptuous, that I was probably
violating some of the law-enforced mores of the Age of Repentance. But
for once in my life I felt reckless.
I concentrated on the piquant face before me. "I'd want her to be a
little on the sophisticated side," I said softly (the MEP captain
had big ears). "Well-versed in the Five Books of course--and perhaps
acquainted with one or two of the forbidden ones. And then I'd want
her to like children and maybe be willing to have three--or even
four--instead of one or none. But most of all I'd want her to be
able to freeze any wrong thoughts a man might have about her, not
by recourse to the law, or by saying or doing anything; but just by
looking the way she does, by being the way she is--if you know what I
mean."
The pinkness of her cheeks had darkened to deep rose. "Is that all, Mr.
Bartlett?"
I sighed. My recklessness had netted me nothing. "Yes," I said.
She withdrew the application from the talk-typer and initialed it. She
raised her eyes. "I censored your reference to the forbidden books,"
she said. "It would have rated you at least two years in Purgatory
if the Marriage Administrator had seen it. You really should be more
careful about what you say, Mr. Bartlett."
I'd forgotten all about the meticulous little machine tap-tapping
silently away on the desk. I felt like a fool. "Thanks," I said.
"One of the reverend psychiatrists will interview you on the top floor.
You'll find a waiting room at the head of the staircase."
I started to turn, then paused. I didn't know why I paused; I only knew
that I couldn't let it end like that.
"I wonder," I said.
"Yes?"
"You obtained a lot of information from me but I don't know a single
thing about you. Not even your name."
The blue eyes had become arctic lakes. Then, suddenly, they filled with
the sparkling warmth of spring. A smile dawned on her lips and her face
became a sunrise.
"Julia," she said. "Julia Prentice."
"I'm glad to have known you," I said.
"And I, you, Mr. Bartlett. And now if you'll please excuse me, there
are other applicants waiting."
There were--a whole benchful of them. I walked past them glumly, hating
them, hating myself, hating a society that would not permit me to
choose my own mate; but most of all hating Big Cupid, the mechanized
matchmaker that would choose for me.
I paused at the foot of the stone staircase, turned for a final look at
Julia. She was interviewing the next applicant. She had forgotten me
already.
But someone else in the departmented chamber hadn't. The gaunt MEP
captain was more absorbed in me than ever. And, judging from his
expression, he no longer merely disapproved of me--he despised me.
Why? Had he overheard my conversation with Julia? I did not think so.
With the confused murmur of hundreds of other voices all around him, he
could scarcely have singled out mine, especially in view of the fact
that I had spoken softly.
But perhaps not softly enough. In any event, he was looking at me as
though I were a hopeless habitué of Vanity Fair desperately in need
of an Evangelist. I felt like walking over to his desk and asking him
the way to the Coelestial City. But I didn't. You don't make flippant
remarks to MEP officers, particularly when those remarks involve one of
the Five Books. You don't, if you want to stay out of Purgatory.
Instead, I turned and started up the stairs to the eyrie of the
reverend psychiatrists.
CHAPTER II
It was late afternoon by the time I got out of the Marriage
Administration Building. The sun, red and swollen from the spring
dust storms, was just disappearing behind the distant elevators of
the plankton conversion plant, and the sky was beginning to lose its
coppery haze. I hailed a rickshaw, leaned back in the plastic chair and
let the June wind cool my face.
The street murmured with the whir of rickshaw wheels and the rhythmic
pounding of runners' feet. The Marriage Administration Building faded
into the lengthening shadows. The Cathedral drifted grayly by, the
tiny windows of its serried chapels glinting red in the final rays of
the sun. Then the massive pile of the Coliseum, silent and somber and
brooding. In the distance, the hives towered darkly into the sky.
The Coliseum gave way to the parsonage apartments. Prim façades
frowned down on me with narrow-windowed righteousness. I shifted
uneasily in my rickshaw seat. If my surreptitious reading of the
forbidden books had given me a new perspective on the Age of
Repentance, it had also given me a troubled conscience.
Just the same, I knew that as soon as the next book "collection" got
under way, I would offer my services to the Literature Police just as
I'd done a dozen times before. And if my luck held, and I was assigned
to sentry duty in the book dump, I would read just as many forbidden
volumes as I could every time I got the chance. Moreover, this time I
would risk Purgatory and try to save a few of them from the flames.
The parsonage apartments petered out and the noisome market area
took their place. Rickshaw traffic densened, competed with hurrying
pedestrians. Plastic heels clacked and ankle-length skirts swished in
the gloom. The hives occulted the sky now, and the stench of cramped
humanity rode the night wind.
I dropped a steelpiece into the runner's hand when he pulled up before
my hive. I tipped him a plastic quarter when he handed me my change. I
could feel the loneliness already, the crushing loneliness that comes
to all men who live in faceless crowds.
But I didn't regret having come to the hives to live. They were no
lonelier than the YMCA had been. And three rooms, no matter how small,
were certainly preferable to the cramped little cubicle I had occupied
during the years immediately following my parents' suicide.
A long time ago--a century perhaps, maybe more--the hives bore the
more euphemistic name of "apartment houses." But they had corridors
then instead of yard-wide passageways, elevators instead of narrow
stairways, rooms instead of roomettes. Those were the years before the
metal crisis, before the population upsurge; the years that constituted
the Age of Wanton Waste.
Deploring the appetites of one's ancestors is a frustrating pastime. I
did not indulge in it now. Climbing the four flights of stairs to my
apartment, I thought instead of my imminent marriage, hoping to take
the edge off my loneliness.
I concentrated on my wife-to-be. A wife, according to the pamphlet
that had accompanied my marriage summons, guaranteed to be my ideal
mate, emotionally, intellectually, and physically. A wife who would
personify my unconscious conception of a goddess, who would fulfill
my unconscious standards of feminine beauty, who would administer
faithfully to my unconscious emotional needs. In short, just exactly
the kind of woman I had unconsciously wanted all my miserable lonely
life.
I tried to picture her. I threw everything out of my mind and left my
mental retina blank. It did not remain blank for long. Gradually, the
twentieth century landscape came into focus--the river flowing in the
foreground, bluer than before, the green sea of the meadow spreading
out to the exquisite forested hills, the impeccable cumulus mountain,
and finally, the solitary bird soaring in the vast sky....
* * * * *
I prepared and ate a frugal meal in the kitchenette, then I shaved,
went into the bedroomette and changed into my sentry suit. I was
combing my shoulder-length hair when the knock on the door sounded.
I waited, listening for the knock to sound again. I knew practically no
one in the city, save the members of my own guard detail, and it was
unlikely that any of them would visit me. They saw enough of me on the
graveyard shift.
Who, then?
The knock sounded again, rising unmistakably above the background
noises of the hive--the dull clatter of plastic pots and pans and
dishes, the nagging voices of wives, the strident ones of husbands,
and the whining of children. I laid down my comb, left the bedroomette,
stepped across the parlorette, opened the door--and stepped back
involuntarily.
The MEP captain had been seated when I had seen him at Marriage
Administration Headquarters, and I hadn't been particularly impressed
by his size. Standing, he was an arresting sight. The top of his high,
wide-brimmed hat touched the ceiling of the passageway; the charcoal
coat that hung so loosely on his shoulders could not conceal their
striking width; large bony wrists with huge arthritic hands protruded
from their cuffs. He looked like a giant who had never had enough to
eat.
As I stood staring, he removed his hat and, reaching into an inside
pocket of his coat, produced a stained plastic badge. He waved it
briefly before my eyes, then replaced it. "Captain Taigue," he said in
a voice as thin and unpleasant as his face. "I have a few questions to
ask you, Mr. Bartlett."
The shock of finding him on my doorstep had left me numb. But I
remembered my rights. "You've no right to ask me questions," I said.
"I'm a single man."
"I was invested with the right today when you applied for a wife.
A husband-to-be is as securely bound to the laws of matrimony as an
actual husband is."
He began to move through the doorway. I either had to get out of the
way or be pushed aside. I got out of the way. Taigue shut the door
behind him and sat down in the parlorette chair. He fixed me with his
brooding eyes.
"Tell me, Mr. Bartlett, do you accept the basic tenets embraced by the
marriage amendment?"
I still wasn't sure whether he had jurisdiction over me or not, but I
decided to cooperate. I was curious to know the reason for his visit.
"Naturally I accept them," I said.
"Then you devoutly believe that enforced monogamy is the final answer
to the deplorable serialized polygamy that characterized the sexual
relationships of the twentieth century and brought on the conjugal
chaos of the twenty-first; that strict adherence to the monogamous
ideal is mandatory if it is to be perpetuated; that the marital
unions computed by the Marriage Integrator can never be questioned
because they are the ultimate in emotional, physical, and intellectual
rapport--"
"I said I accepted the tenets," I said. "What more do you want?"
"That adultery," Taigue went on implacably, "is the most despicable
crime a citizen can commit against his society; that adultery has many
subtle phases, among the subtlest being the proclivity on the part of
some husbands and husbands-to-be to look at women other than their
wives or wives-to-be--and lust! You _do_ devoutly believe these things,
do you not, Mr. Bartlett?"
"Look, Captain," I said. "I spent the whole afternoon being
cross-examined by a reverend psychiatrist. He knows more about my
sexual nature now than I do myself. If you doubt my marital fitness,
why don't you read his report?"
"Psychiatrists are fools," Taigue said. "I investigate applicants in my
own way. Now, for the last time, Mr. Bartlett, do you devoutly believe
the tenets I have just enumerated?"
"Yes!" I shouted.
"Then why did you look at the girl who took your application this
morning--and lust?"
The question staggered me. It betrayed a fantastic overzealousness in
his pursuit of his duty--an overzealousness so consuming that it had
warped his perspective, had made him see sin where no sin existed.
Julia Prentice was one woman whom you could _not_ look at and lust. It
was that particular quality, I realized now, that had attracted me to
her in the first place.
I knew my face was burning; and I knew that Taigue was just the kind
of a man who would deliberately interpret a manifestation of anger as
a manifestation of guilt if it suited his predilections. The knowledge
infuriated me all the more. In his eyes I was guilty, and nothing I
could do would prove I wasn't.
I waited until I was sure I could control my voice. Then I said: "I
think you've been fasting too long, Captain. Your hallucinations are
getting the best of you."
He took no offense. In fact, he smiled as he got slowly to his feet.
But his eyes burned with a sort of crazed satisfaction that was either
the essence of dedication or the flickering of incipient insanity.
"I did not expect you to answer my question, Mr. Bartlett," he said. "I
merely wished to apprise you of the alertness of the MEP, and to warn
you that any further attention you may bestow on Julia Prentice will
not go unobserved--or unpunished."
"You can leave any time," I said, opening the door.
"I can also return any time. Remember that, Mr. Bartlett. And remember
the new commandment--_Thou shalt not look at a woman and lust!_"
* * * * *
His tall starved body swayed slightly as he moved through the doorway.
It was all I could do to keep my fists at my sides, all I could do to
hold back the violent words and phrases that swirled in my mind. When
the door swung shut, eclipsing the charcoal shoulders, I collapsed
against it.
I had heard tales of the zealots who guarded the matrimonial sanctity
of society; I had even visited the Coliseum when a stoning was taking
place and seen the battered bloody bodies of the victims lying in the
dirt of the arena. But somehow neither the tales nor the bodies had
driven home the truth that overwhelmed me now.
When the inevitable metal crisis followed the production-consumption
orgy of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and the
material world began to fall apart, the people turned to religion for
succor. The subsequent merging of the two main churches was a milestone
in religious progress. But then the trend went so far that the people
elected church officials to represent them and began to stress outward
manifestations of virtue by regressing to Puritanical dress and by
voluntarily limiting their literary fare to the Bible, _Paradise
Lost_, _The Pilgrims' Progress_, _The Scarlet Letter_, and _The Divine
Comedy_.
The first clergy-congress was as zealous as the first ordained
president in the drafting and the passing of the marriage amendment.
And the frugal way of life already adopted by the people was ideal
for a world down to its last inch of topsoil. The Marriage Integrator
fitted into the new scheme of things nicely, for it justified the stern
enforcement of the new marriage laws. And so marriage became a duty
rather than a privilege.
I'd been profoundly distrustful of machine-made marriages ever since
my parents' suicide, and the surreptitious reading I'd done on the
various occasions when I had access to the book dump had increased that
distrust. Marriage, according to all the old literature I'd read on it,
was a pretty complex undertaking, so replete with subtleties that it
was difficult to imagine a computing machine, no matter how intricate
it might be, capable of dealing with them.
There was another aspect about Big Cupid that didn't quite add up.
Logically, compatible marriages should result in many children. But
most of the married couples in the apartments around me had only
one child, and many of them were childless. The condition held true
throughout the rest of the city, probably throughout the entire
country.
A possible explanation lay in the popular conviction that sex was sin.
But it was far from being a satisfactory explanation. The original
Puritans identified sex with sin too, but they still raised large
families.
No, there was something about Big Cupid that didn't make sense.
Moreover, there was something about the Age of Repentance itself that
didn't make sense either--when you used books other than the sacred
Five for criteria.
The sex orgies which climaxed the Age of Wanton Waste and were
influential in bringing about the mass regression to Puritanism, were
unquestionably a blot on the scarred escutcheon of civilization.
However, they only represented one extreme: the monogamous fanaticism
of the Age of Repentance represented the other, which was just as
remote from normalcy. Both were wrong.
The society in which I lived and moved was an inconsistent and a rigid
society; I had known this for years. But, until now, the knowledge had
never bothered me, for I had created the illusion of being a free man
by avoiding personal relationships, especially marriage. Now that I
could no longer do that, I realized my true status.
I was a prisoner--and Taigue was my keeper.
CHAPTER III
I stood by the yawning mouth of the newly exhumed grave and swore.
I had only been on duty two hours, but I had lost a Cadillac-corpse
already.
I shifted the beam of my pocket torch from the deep impressions made
by the 'copter feet to the tumbled earth around the huge grave mouth,
then into the empty grave itself. The gun metal casket had left a
neat rectangle in the blue clay when the cargo winch had yanked it
loose. Staring down at the smooth, mute subsoil, I felt like Christian
wallowing in the Slough of Despond.
I had lied to Julia. Things were _not_ under control at Cadillac. This
was the fourth car-corpse I had lost during the past month, and I
shuddered when I thought of what the Cadillac Sexton would probably say
to me in the morning.
The fact that I'd lost no time in notifying the Air Police was small
consolation. The half dozen decrepit 'copters they had at their
disposal were no match for the streamlined jobs of the ghouls. The
ghouls would get away just as they always did and one more car-corpse
would be dismembered and sold on the black market--or contribute its
vital steel, copper and aluminum to the clandestine manufacture of
newer and swifter 'copters.
I kicked a lump of loose dirt. I felt sick. Around me, tall lombardies
formed a palisade so dense that the light of the gibbous moon couldn't
penetrate it. Above me, Mars shone like an inflamed red eye. For a
moment I wished I were up there, a member of the abandoned colony in
_Deucalionis Regio_.
But only for a moment. The ordinary rigors of colonial life were
as nothing compared to the rigors that must have faced the Martian
colonists when the metal crisis terminated the building of spaceships
and brought about the colony's isolation. Perhaps those rigors had
eased by now, and then again, perhaps _Deucalionis Regio_ had turned
into the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
I turned and began walking back to the ganglion tower whence Betz's
alarm had summoned me. Betz hailed me when I approached tower 6, and
I paused. I could see his round youthful face in the moonlight. The
silvery albedo made it seem like a small moon itself as he peered down
at me from his eyrie. I had never thought much of him--probably because
he had applied for a wife nine years before he needed to and was
already a married man. I thought even less of him now.
"I can't understand how they got down without my seeing them," he said.
"I can't understand either," I said.
"It's these damn trees," Betz said. "Some of them are higher than the
towers. I don't see how the Sexton expects us to do a good job of
guarding when we can't see what we're trying to guard."
"It helps if you keep your eyes open," I said, and walked away.
But whether I liked it or not, his objection was valid. While the
Cadillac Cemetery had none of the sprawling vastness of Ford Acres, its
decorative landscaping made the deployment of a limited guard detail a
difficult proposition. The ancient automakers anticipated neither the
future value of their enshrined products nor the sacrilegious exhumings
that were to begin a century later, and when they laid out their car
cemeteries, they stressed beauty rather than practicality. I could not
feel any kindness toward a long dead manufacturer with a penchant for
lombardy poplars, weeping willows, and arborvitae; who, seemingly, had
done everything in his power to make it easy for twenty-second century
ghouls to dig up car-corpses right under sentries' noses and whisk them
away in swift cargo 'copters.
As I made my way toward the ganglion tower, I thought of what I
would say to the Cadillac Sexton in the morning. I prepared my words
carefully, then memorized them so that I could deliver them without
faltering: _The time has come for the authorities to decide which is
the more important--the scenic beauty of the ground itself, or the
security of the sacred corpses beneath the ground. No sentry, however
alert he may be, can be expected to see through trees, and now that
the rains are over and the new foliage has reached maximum growth, the
situation is crucial and will remain so until fall_--
I went all out. The more responsibility I could foist on the time of
the year, the less I would have to assume myself. The Ford Acres Sexton
had given me a glowing recommendation when I'd applied for the post at
Cadillac several years back, and I hated to lose face in the Cadillac
Sexton's eyes. The money was good, much better than at Ford, and with a
wife on the way I couldn't afford the cut in salary that relegation to
an inferior cemetery would entail. Anyway, the time of the year _was_
to blame. What other reason could there possibly be for my losing so
many car-corpses?
* * * * *
But the Cadillac Sexton took a dim view of my suggestion when he
showed up the next morning. He glowered at me from behind his desk
in the caretaker's office and I could tell from the deepening of the
creases in his bulbous forehead that I was in for a lecture.
"Trees are rare enough on Earth as it is without wantonly destroying
them," he said, when I had finished talking. "And these particular
trees are the rarest of the rare."
He shook his head deploringly. "I'm afraid you don't quite understand
the finer points of our mission, Bartlett. The scenic beauty which you
would have me devastate is an essential part of the mechanistic beauty,
the memory of which we are trying to perpetuate. There is a higher
purpose behind the automobile trust funds than the mere preservation
of twentieth century vehicles. In setting those funds aside, the
ancient automakers were endeavoring to return, symbolically and in a
different form, the elements they had taken from the Earth. It was a
noble gesture, Bartlett, a very noble gesture, and the fact that we
today disapprove of the Age of Wanton Waste does not obviate the fact
that the Age of Wanton Waste could--and did--produce art. The symbolic
immortality of that art is our responsibility, our mission.
"No, Bartlett, we can never resort to the sacrilegious leveling of
trees and shrubbery in an attempt to solve our problem. Its solution
lies in greater vigilance on the part of sentries, particularly senior
sentries. Our mission is a noble one, one not lightly to be regarded.
It behooves us--"
He went on and on in the same vein. After a while, when it became
evident that he wasn't going to relegate me to Chevrolet Meadows or
Buick Lawn, I relaxed. His idealism was high-flown, but I could endure
it as long as the money kept coming in.
When he finally dismissed me, I started back to the hives. I couldn't
help thinking, as I walked along the crumbling ancient highway, that
if the manufacturers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first
centuries had been a little less zealous in their production of art,
the Mesabi iron range might be something more than a poignant memory
and there might have been enough ore available to have made mass
'copter production something more than an interrupted dream. There was
an element of irony in using a super-highway for a footpath.
I hailed a rickshaw at the out-skirts of the city and rode in style
to my apartment. There was a letter in my mail receptacle. The return
address said: MARRIAGE ADMINISTRATION HEADQUARTERS. I waited till I
got to my roomettes before I opened it. I wouldn't have opened it then
if I'd dared not to.
The message was brief:
_Report 1500, City Cathedral, Chapel 14, for marital union with one
Julia Prentice, cit. no. 14489304-P, as per M. I. directive no.
38572048954-PR._
I read it again. And again. It still said Julia Prentice.
I knew my heart was beating a lot faster than it normally did and I
knew my hands were trembling. I also knew that I was reacting like a
fool. There were probably a hundred Julia Prentices in the hive sector
alone and probably a hundred more in the other residential districts.
So the chance that this Julia Prentice was the one I wanted her to be
was one in two hundred.
But my heart kept up its rapid pace and my hands went right on
trembling, and I kept seeing that beautiful flowing river with the
green sweep of meadow just beyond, the lovely forested hills and the
white cloud; the dark and forlorn speck of the soaring bird....
* * * * *
She was there waiting for me, standing in the Cathedral corridor before
the little door of Chapel 14, and she was _the_ Julia Prentice. I
asked myself no questions as to why and wherefore. The reality of her
sufficed for the moment.
She looked at me as I came up, then quickly dropped her eyes. The blue
polka dots of her new sunbonnet matched her new Priscilla Mullins dress.
"I never thought it would be you," I said. "I still can't believe it."
"And why not me?" She would not raise her eyes but kept them focused on
the lapel of my John Alden coat. "Why not me as well as someone else?
I had a right to apply for a husband. I'm of age. I had nothing to do
with the Marriage Integrator's decision."
"I didn't say you did."
"You implied it. I think you are conceited. Furthermore, I think you're
being quixotic about a perfectly prosaic occurrence. There's nothing in
the least romantic about two pasteboard cards meeting in the digestive
system of the Marriage Integrator and finding themselves compatible."
I stared at her. I'd been under the impression, during the brief
interval I'd talked with her the preceding day, that she liked me.
But perhaps liking a total stranger whom you never expected to see
again was different from liking a near total stranger who was very
shortly going to be your husband. For the second time during the past
twenty-four hours I found myself wallowing in the Slough of Despond.
"I didn't have anything to do with the Marriage Integrator's decision
either," I said flatly. I turned away from her and faced the chapel
door.
It was a real wooden door, with a stained glass window. The design on
the window depicted a stoning in the Coliseum. There were two people
standing forlornly in the arena--a man and a woman. They stood with
their heads bowed, the scarlet letters on their breasts gleaming
vividly. The first stone had just struck the ground at their feet; the
second stone hovered in the air some distance away. The encompassing
stoning platform was crowded with angry people fighting for access to
the regularly spaced stone piles, and high above the scene the Coliseum
flag fluttered proudly in the breeze, its big red letter proclaiming
that a chastisement was in progress.
There were a dozen other couples waiting in the corridor now, shyly
conversing or staring silently at the stained glass windows before
them. I wondered if they felt the way I felt, if they had the same
misgivings.
The minutes inched by. The silence between Julia and myself became
intolerable. I pondered the meaning of the word "compatibility," and
wondered why unconscious rapport should manifest itself in conscious
hatred.
I remembered my own lonely childhood--the long evenings spent in my
parents' hive apartment, the endless dissension between my mother
and my father, my father's relegation to the parlorette couch and
my mother's key in the bedroomette door, their suicidal leap twenty
stories to the street when I was nineteen years old.
I thought of how crowded the hive school had been when I attended
it and I wondered suddenly if it was crowded now. I thought of the
increasing number of empty apartments in the hive sector, and the cold
breath of a long dormant suspicion blew icily through my mind. The
world quivered, began to fall apart--
And then Julia said: "I was very rude to you. I didn't mean to be. I'm
sorry, Mr. Bartlett."
The world steadied, came back into proper focus. "My name is Roger," I
said.
"I'm sorry, Roger."
The marriage chimes began to sound, appending a tinkling ellipsis to
her words. I opened the door with trembling fingers and we stepped into
the chapel together. The door closed silently behind us.
Before us stood a life-size TV screen. At our elbows, electric candles
combined their radiance with the feeble sunlight eking through the
narrow stained glass window above the screen and made a half-hearted
attempt to chase away the gloom. A basket of synthetic flowers bloomed
tiredly at our feet.
Julia's face was pale, but no paler, probably, than mine was. Suddenly
sonorous music throbbed out from a concealed speaker and the TV screen
came to life. The Marriage Administrator materialized before us, tall,
black-garbed, austere of countenance.
He did not speak till the marriage music ended. Then he said: "When
I raise my left hand the first time, you will pronounce your own
names clearly and distinctly so that they can be recorded in the
tape-contract. When I raise my left hand the second time, you will
pronounce, with equal clarity and distinctness, the words 'I do.'
"Do you--" He paused and raised his left hand.
"Julia Prentice."
"Roger Bartlett."
"Take this man-woman to be your lawful wedded husband-wife?" He raised
his left hand again.
"I do." We spoke the words together.
"Then by the power invested in me by the marriage amendment, I
pronounce you man and wife and sentence you to matrimony for the rest
of your natural lives."
CHAPTER IV
It was some time before I remembered to kiss my bride. When I did
remember, the twentieth century landscape spread out around me and I
had the distinct impression that the world had stirred beneath my feet,
had hesitated, for a fraction of a second, on its gargantuan journey
around the sun.
The voice of the Marriage Administrator was deafening, his face purple.
"There will be no osculating in the chapels! The chapels will be
cleared immediately for the next applicants. There will be no--"
Neither of us had known that the screen was a transmitter as well as a
receiver, and we moved apart guiltily. A shower of plastic rice poured
down on us as we stepped through the doorway. We ran laughing down the
corridor, picked up our marriage contract at the vestibule window, and
stepped out into the Cathedral court.
The afternoon sun was bright in the coppery sky but the shadow of the
pulpit platform lay cool and dark across the eastern flagstones. We
walked across the congregation area to the vaulted entrance that led
to the street. I hailed a double rickshaw and we rode to the YWCA and
picked up Julia's things. Then we headed for the hives.
I'd called in the converters, of course. They'd done their work rapidly
and well. I noticed the changes the moment I opened the door.
There were two chairs in the parlorette now, both smaller than the
old one had been, but charming in their identical design. A table had
replaced the table-ette in the kitchenette and an extra stool now stood
by the enlarged cupboard. Through the bedroomette doorway I could see
one of the corners of the new double bed.
I stepped into the parlorette, waited for Julia to follow me. When she
did not, I returned to the passageway. She was standing there quietly,
her eyes downcast, her hands folded at the waist of her new blue dress.
It struck me abruptly that she was the most beautiful thing I had ever
seen and simultaneously it dawned on me why she hadn't followed me in.
The custom was so old--so absurd. It was almost a part of folklore,
a tattered remnant of the early years of the twentieth century when
newlyweds had tried to insure by fetish the conjugal permanence that
was now enforced by law.
And yet, in a way, it was beautiful.
I stood for a moment, memorizing Julia's pale fresh loveliness. Then I
lifted her into my arms and carried her across the threshold.
* * * * *
Guarding interred Cadillacs was far from being an ideal way to spend
my wedding night, but after the way things had been going I hadn't
dared to ask the Sexton for an extra night off. I donned my sentry
suit in the darkness, moving quietly so as not to awaken Julia, then I
descended to the street and hailed a rickshaw. It was past 2300 and I
had to ride all the way to the cemetery in order to get there on time.
After posting the other sentries, I relieved the 1600-2400 senior
sentry in the ganglion tower. He had nothing of interest to report and
I sent him on his way. Standing beneath the big rotating searchlight,
watching him descend the ladder, I envied him his night's freedom.
The searchlight threw a moving swath of radiance over artificial hill
and dale, shone like an ephemeral sun on arborvitae patterns, blazed
on the green curtains of lombardy stands. I cursed those noncommittal
curtains for the thousandth time, deplored my inability to do anything
about them.
The size of the cemetery precluded any practical patrol of the grounds.
All I could do was hope that I, or one of the other sentries in the
strategically located towers, would spot any unusual movement, hear any
unusual sound.
I touched the cold barrel of the tower blaster. My fingers were eager
for the feel of the trigger, my eyes hungry for the spiderweb of the
sight. I had never brought down a ghoul 'copter--for the simple reason
that I had never had a good shot at one. But I was looking forward to
the experience.
It was a cool night for June. The wind had shifted to the northeast,
washing the haze of the western dust storms from the atmosphere, and
the stars stood out, bold and clear. Mars was no longer an inflamed
red eye but a glowing pinpoint of pure orange. _Deucalionis Regio_,
however, was as much of an enigma as ever.
An hour passed. The sentries phoned in their reports and I recorded
them on the blotter.
0100--all quiet on the Cadillac Front.
My thoughts shifted to Julia, and the magic of the night deepened
around me. I pictured her sleeping, her hair dark against the pillow,
the delicate crescents of her lashes accentuating the whiteness of her
cheeks; her supple body curved in relaxed grace beneath the sheets. I
listened to the soft sound of her breathing--
Soft? No, not soft. My Julia breathed loudly. Moreover, she breathed
with a regularity hard to associate with a human being--a regularity
reminiscent of a machine. Specifically, a malfunctioning machine, and
more specifically yet, the turning of a borer shaft in a well-oiled,
but worn, sleeve.
Alert now, I tried to locate the sound. At first it seemed to be all
around me, a part of the night air itself, but I finally narrowed it
down to the northeast section of the cemetery. Tower 11's territory.
I called 11. Kester's lean young face came into focus on the
telescreen. "You should be hearing a borer," I said. "Unless you're
deaf. _Do_ you hear one?"
Kester's face seemed strained. "Yes. I--I think so."
"Then why didn't you report it? I can hear the damn thing way over
here!"
"I--I was going to," Kester said. "I wanted to make sure."
"Make sure! How sure do you have to be? Now listen. You stay by your
blaster and keep your eyes and your ears open. I'm coming over to see
if I can locate the 'copter. If I do locate it I'll throw a flare under
it, and if they try to rise, you burn them. If they don't try to
rise and we can take them alive, so much the better. I'd like to see
a real live ghoul. But otherwise, you burn them! If we lose another
car-corpse, we'll all be out on our ears."
"All right," Kester said. The screen went blank.
Descending the tower ladder, I wondered what kind of a guard detail I
had. Last night, Betz's negligence had cost me a Cadillac. Tonight,
Kester's negligence had very nearly cost me another--and might yet, if
I wasn't careful.
I couldn't understand it. They were both newly-married men (Kester
had applied for a wife the same day Betz had) and, since women were
forbidden to work after marrying, both of them certainly needed the
better wages Cadillac paid. Why should they deliberately jeopardize
their status?
Maybe Betz really hadn't seen or heard anything until it was too late.
Maybe Kester really hadn't been sure that the sound he was hearing was
the turning of a borer.
But I was sure, and the closer I got to Tower 11, the surer I became. I
timed my approach with the swath of the searchlight, made certain there
was plenty of concealment available whenever it passed my way. That
wasn't hard to do, with all the lombardies, the arborvitae, the hills,
dales and gardens that infested the place. But for once the ancient
automakers' passion for landscaping was benefitting me instead of the
ghouls.
Tower 11 was a tripodal skeleton stabbing into the cadaverous face of
the rising moon. It loomed higher and higher above me as I neared the
source of the sound. I swore silently at Kester. He was either stone
deaf and blind as a bat, or a deliberate traitor to the Cadillac cause.
The exhuming was taking place practically under his nose.
I crept beneath the hem of a lombardy curtain and lay in the deep
shadows. I could see the cargo 'copter clearly now. It squatted over a
grave mound less than twenty feet from my hiding place, its rotating
borer protruding from its open belly like an enormous stinger. The
grave mound was already perforated with a score of holes, spaced so
that when the car-casket was drawn upward, the hard-packed earth would
crumble and fall apart.
The borer was now probing for the eye of the casket. Even as I watched
I heard the grind of steel against gun metal, saw the borer reverse its
spiral and rise swiftly into the hold of the 'copter. A bright light
stabbed down into the new hole, was quickly extinguished. I thought
I heard the sound of a breath being expelled in relief, but I wasn't
sure. Shortly thereafter, I heard the almost inaudible hum of a winch
motor, saw the hook dangling on the end of the steel cable just before
it disappeared into the hole.
I pulled a flare from my belt, broke the seal. My aim was excellent.
The flare landed in the center of the grave mound, went off the minute
it hit the ground. The light was blinding. The whole northeast section
of the cemetery became as bright as noonday, the interior of the
'copter leaped into dazzling detail. I could see the dungaree-clad
ghouls standing on the edge of the open hatch. I could see the winch
operator's face----
It was a striking face. It was a twentieth century landscape. The smear
of grease on one of the pink cheeks had no effect whatsoever on the
white cloud. The blue eyes, blinded by the unexpected light, flowed
their blue and beautiful way along the green lip of the nonpareil
meadow. The forested hills were more exquisite than ever--
But the solitary bird was gone, and the sky was empty.
And then, suddenly, I could not see anything at all. The ground
erupted as the casket broke free, and a shower of dirt and broken
clods engulfed me. I staggered to my feet, shielding my eyes with my
arms, gasping for breath. By the time I regained my vision the 'copter
was high above the lombardies, the exhumed car-casket swinging wildly
beneath the still-opened hatch.
_Don't shoot!_ my mind screamed to Kester. _Don't shoot!_ But the words
were locked in my throat and I could not utter them. I could only stand
there helplessly, waiting for the disintegrating beam to lance out from
the tower, waiting for the 'copter and the ghouls--and my conniving
Julia--to become bright embers in the night sky.
But I needn't have worried. Kester missed by a mile.
* * * * *
I turned him in. What else could I do? I'd spent nine years languishing
in lonely towers through long and lonely nights, faithfully guarding
the buried art of the automakers. I couldn't throw those years away out
of foolish loyalty to a man as obviously indifferent to the cause as
Kester was.
But I didn't feel very proud of myself, standing there in the Cadillac
Sexton's office the next morning, with Kester, his face cold and
expressionless, standing beside me. I didn't feel proud at all. And the
Sexton's praise of my last night's action only turned my stomach.
I was cheating and I knew it. I should have turned in Julia too.
But I couldn't do that. Before I took any action, I had to see her,
question her myself. There had to be a reasonable explanation for her
complicity. There _had_ to be!
After the Sexton dismissed me I waited outside for Kester. He didn't
seem like a chastened man when he stepped into the morning sunlight. If
anything, he seemed relieved--if not actually happy.
He would have walked right by me without a word, but I touched his
shoulder and he paused. "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't want to turn you
in but I had no choice. But the Sexton let you go?"
He nodded.
"I'm sorry," I said again.
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he said: "Bartlett, you're a
fool," and turned and walked away.
CHAPTER V
Julia wasn't in the apartment when I got home. But Taigue was.
He was sitting in one of the new chairs as though he owned the place.
This time he hadn't come alone. The other chair was occupied by an MEP
patrolman armed with a bludgeon gun.
"Come in," Taigue said. "We've been expecting you."
I don't know why I should have cared after the events of last night,
but the thought of what he might have done to Julia crystallized my
blood. "Where's Julia?" I said.
"Why, what a unique coincidence, Mr. Bartlett. Truly, our minds run
in the same channel, to coin a cliché. I was about to voice the same
plaintive question."
He was still fasting, and the increased gauntness of his face
accentuated the fanatical intensity of his eyes. "If you've hurt her,"
I said, "I'll kill you!"
Taigue's ugly, dolichocephalic head swiveled on his thin neck till he
faced his assistant. "Look who's going to kill someone, Officer Minch.
Our esteemed candidate for the Letter himself!"
That one set me back on my heels. I felt the strength go out of my
legs. "You're out of your mind, Captain. I'm legally married and you
know it!"
"Indeed, Mr. Bartlett?" He reached into the inside pocket of his
coat, withdrew a folded sheet of synthetic paper. He tossed it to me
contemptuously. "Read all about your 'marriage,' Mr. Bartlett. Then
tell me if I'm out of my mind."
I unfolded the gray document, knowing what it was and yet refusing to
accept the knowledge. All warrants for arrest are unpleasant to the
recipient, but an MEP warrant is triply unpleasant.
In addition to being a warrant, it is an indictment, and in addition
to being an indictment, it is a sentence. A marital offender has
automatically waived his right to a trial of any kind by the very
nature of his offense. The logic of the first Puritanical legislators
was muddied by their unnatural horror of illicit sex--an inevitable
consequence of their eagerness to atone for the sexual enormities of
their forebears.
I read the words, first with disbelief, then, as the realization of
Julia's motivation dawned on me, with nausea:
CHARGE: _Adultery, as per paragraph 34 of the Adultery Statute,
which states in effect that all unofficial marital relationships,
regardless of potential ameliorating factors, be construed as
asocial and classified as adulterous acts_.
CORRESPONDENTS: _Roger Bartlett, cit. no. 14479201-B: Julia
Prentice, cit. no. 14489304-P_.
PARTICULARS: _M. I. check, suggested and carried out by MEP Captain
Lawrence Taigue, disclosed discrepancy in compatibility factors of
aforementioned correspondents. Further check revealed deliberate
altering of data cards before M. I. computation, rendering said
computation invalid and resultant 'marriage' unofficial and
therefore adulterous._
SENTENCE: _Public chastisement in the arena of the Municipal
Coliseum_.
DATE OF CHASTISEMENT: _June 20, 2151_.
AUTHORIZED ARRESTING OFFICERS: _MEP Captain Lawrence Taigue; MEP
Patrolman Ebenezer Minch_.
(_signed_) _Myles Fletcher_
MARRIAGE ADMINISTRATOR
_June 8, 2151_
"Well, Mr. Bartlett? Must you read the words off the page to get their
import?"
My mind was reeling but it still rebelled against the reality of
Julia's guilt. I grabbed at the first alternative I could think of.
"_You_ changed the cards, didn't you, Taigue?" I said.
"Don't be ridiculous. The mere thought of bringing an oafish clod like
yourself into even transient intimacy with a sublime creature like
Julia revolts my finer sensibilities. Julia altered the cards--as you
perfectly well know. But she did not alter them of her own free will.
You forced her to alter them."
I stared at him. "For God's sake, Captain, use your head! Why should I
do such a thing? How--"
"_Why?_" Taigue had risen to his feet. His eyes were dilated. He
breathed with difficulty. "I'll tell you why! Because you're a filthy
animal, that's why. Because you looked at an ethereal woman and saw
nothing but flesh. Because your carnal appetite was whetted and your
lecherous desires had to be fed at any cost.
"But you're not going to get away with it!" He was shouting now and
his trembling fingers were inches from my throat. "I myself will cast
the first stone. But before I do, you'll confess. When the Hour is
near, you'll realize the enormity of your lust, just as they all do,
and you'll fall on your knees and ask forgiveness. And when you do,
you'll automatically absolve Julia of all guilt. _All_ guilt, do you
understand, Bartlett? Julia's purity must be restored. Julia's purity
_has_ to be restored!"
I brought my right fist up into his stomach then. Hard. I had to. In
another second those yearning fingers would have clamped around my
throat.
But I forgot about Patrolman Minch and his bludgeon gun. Even before
Taigue hit the floor, the first charge struck me in the shoulder, spun
me around so that I faced the wall. The next one caught me squarely in
the back of the neck, turned my whole body numb. I sagged like a cloth
doll. The floor fascinated me. It was like a dark cloud, rising. A
dark cloud, and then a swirling mist of blackness. And then--nothing.
* * * * *
Prison cells are ideal for objective thinking. There is a quality about
their drab walls that brings you face to face with reality.
The Coliseum cell in which I was confined possessed the ultimate in
drab walls. The reality with which I was faced was the ultimate in
unpleasantness....
On our wedding night, Julia had told me that she had worked at Marriage
Administration Headquarters for three years. But when I mentioned
Taigue's concern over her, she was amazed. She said she hardly even
knew him, that he had never spoken a word to her, had never--to her
knowledge--even looked at her.
But he had looked at her without her knowledge. Of that I was sure. He
had looked at her a hundred, a thousand, a million times. He had sat at
his desk for three years, admiring her, adoring her, worshipping her.
Beyond her physical appearance, however, his Julia bore no relation to
the real Julia. His Julia was far more than an ordinary woman. She was
the exquisite vase into which he had thrust the flowers of his idealism.
The celibacy vows he had taken when he was ordained an MEP officer
were only partly responsible for his attitude. The real key lay in
his physical ugliness--an ugliness that had probably influenced his
decision to become an MEP officer.
He had never spoken to Julia, or looked at her openly, because of a
deep conviction that he would repel her; and he had rationalized his
reticence by attributing it to his rigid interpretation of his duty
as an MEP officer. The only way he could realize his love for her was
by elevating that love to a higher plane. This had necessitated his
elevating Julia also.
Taigue loathed sex. He could tolerate it only when it came as a result
of a society-sanctioned marriage. With respect to Julia, he could not
tolerate it at all, because the intrusion of sex upon his exquisite
vase of flowers sullied both flowers and vase.
When he discovered that the Marriage Integrator had matched Julia
with an ordinary mortal, he could not accept the validity of the
computation; neither could he accept the fact that Julia had applied
for a husband. He had to find a loophole somewhere, a means to
rationalize the danger to his flowers. When he learned that Julia
herself had contrived the computation, he immediately transferred the
blame to me, thereby absolving Julia.
But his logic was shaky, and he knew it. He couldn't quite believe the
lies he had told himself. His edifice was tottering and he needed my
confession to shore it up. Therein lay my only hope.
For Taigue would buy that confession at any price. And I would sell it
for only one price--
My life.
And so I sat there in my lonely cell, through the gray daytime hours
and through the dark nights, waiting for Taigue.
I thought often of Julia. In spite of myself I thought of her, and
in spite of myself I kept hoping that she would continue to elude
the country-wide search which Marriage Enforcement Headquarters had
instigated the morning of my arrest.
I thought of her not as Taigue's vase of flowers, but as the pale girl
who had said "I do" with me at the mass-wedding ceremony; as the lovely
girl who had lingered in the hive passageway, waiting for me to carry
her across the threshold; as the unforgettable girl who had been my
wife for a dozen precious hours.
But most of all, I thought of her as the deceitful woman who had
intended to use me as an instrument in the ghouls' exploitation of the
Cadillac Cemetery.
As she had used Betz and Kester before me.
I had her whole _modus operandi_ figured out. Her system was simple.
When a cemetery sentry applied for a wife, she simply notified an
available sister-ghoul, entered her application along with the
sentry's, and then altered the resultant data cards so that they came
out of the integrator in the right combination. It took a lot of
know-how, but she hadn't worked at Marriage Administration Headquarters
three years for nothing. She hadn't taken the job in the first place
for nothing, either.
Being a senior sentry, I had rated her personal supervision. I had no
idea as to what wiles she would have employed to make me voluntarily
neglect my duty to Cadillac; but I had an uncomfortable suspicion that
they would have worked.
* * * * *
Taigue didn't come until the last day--the last hour, in fact. I was
sweating. The Coliseum seamstress had already sewn the big scarlet
letter on the breast of my gray prison blouse and the Coliseum barber
had just been in to cut my hair. I could hear the distant shuffling of
feet on the stoning platform and the faraway murmur of many voices.
Taigue was still fasting. Ordinary MEP officers were usually content to
fast their required day per week and to let it go at that. But Taigue
was not an ordinary MEP officer. He stood before me like a Bunyanesque
caricature. Caverns had appeared above the ridges of his cheek bones
and his eyes had retreated into their depths where they burned like
banked fires.
"Short hair becomes you, Mr. Bartlett," he said, but his irony lacked
its usual edge. Moreover, the ghastly paleness of his face could not be
wholly attributed to his physical condition.
"Did you come to receive my confession, Captain?"
"Whenever you're ready, Mr. Bartlett."
"I'm ready now."
He nodded solemnly. "I thought you might be. I discounted Julia's
insistence that she acted of her own free will."
That shook me. "Julia? Is--is she here?"
He nodded again. "She gave herself up a week ago. She confessed to
altering the data cards--insisted over and over that she alone was
to blame. I tried to tell them, I tried to explain to the Marriage
Administrator that she couldn't possibly be to blame, that she was an
innocent tool in the hands of a hardened adulterer. But he wouldn't
listen. No one would listen. They sewed the letter on her this morning.
They--they cut her hair."
I tried to tell myself that she had it coming, but it wasn't any good.
I felt sick. I kept seeing her crumpled body lying in the arena and
the cruel stones scattered in the dirt and the blood on them. Julia's
blood--
"Well, Mr. Bartlett? You said you were ready to confess."
"Yes," I said. "I presume you're ready to pay my price?"
"Price?" The emaciated face showed surprise. "Do you expect to be
reimbursed for relieving your conscience, Mr. Bartlett?"
"You can put it that way if it makes it easier for you."
"And what do you think your confession is worth?"
"You know how much it's worth, Taigue. It's worth Julia's life--and
mine."
"You try my patience, Mr. Bartlett."
"You try mine too."
"My wanting your confession is a purely personal matter. Both you and
Julia will die in the arena regardless of your decision. Adultery
charges are irrevocable."
"I'm not asking you to revoke any charges," I said. "All I'm asking you
to do is to get Julia and me out of here alive. You can do it."
He stared at me. "Mr. Bartlett, your incarceration has affected your
mind! Do you really think I'd free you, even if I could, and give you
further opportunity to vitiate Julia?"
My thinking hadn't been nearly as objective as I'd imagined. I should
have realized that Taigue would rather see his flowers dead than
expose them to additional "defilement." I was desperate now, and my
desperation got the better of my judgment. "Is my confession worth
Julia's life then?" I asked.
He raised an arthritic hand to his forehead, wiped away a glistening
film of sweat. Presently: "Mr. Bartlett, I'm afraid you don't
understand the situation at all. Your perspective is so warped by wrong
thinking that 2 and 2 fail to make 4 to you, either by multiplication
or addition.
"Don't you see that Julia _has_ to die? Can't you understand that, even
though she is innocent, her reputation is still hopelessly tainted by
your illicit affections? Can't you realize that I wouldn't save her
even if I could?"
I did realize finally, though his fanaticism stunned me. He was more
than a mere zealot; he was a monster. But if Julia was his goddess,
marriage enforcement was his god. He could not buy a guarantee of his
goddess' purity if the price involved the desecration of his god. He
needed my confession desperately, but he didn't have the authority to
torture it out of me and he couldn't pay the price I had asked. My one
hope of escape had turned out to be a pretty worthless item.
But it was still my only hope. If I could find another way to use it,
it might still net me my freedom, and Julia's too.
There was one way. It was drastic and it might not work; but it was
worth a try. "All right, Taigue," I said. "I understand your position.
Bring Julia here and I'll confess."
"Bring her here? Why? All you have to do is admit you coerced her to
alter the data cards. Her presence isn't necessary."
"It's necessary to me."
He looked at me for a moment, then turned abruptly and left the cell.
He told the patrolman, whom he had posted by the door, to wait, then he
disappeared down the corridor. The patrolman closed the cell door but
didn't bother to lock it. He didn't need to. The bludgeon gun in the
crook of his arm was a sufficient deterrent.
Presently I heard Taigue's returning footsteps. They were accompanied
by other footsteps--light, quick footsteps. My heart broke the barrier
I had erected around it, rose up, choking me.
When I saw her shorn hair I wanted to cry. Her face was more like a
little girl's than ever, but the blue eyes gazing straight into mine
were the eyes of a mature woman. There was regret in them, but no
shame.
I turned away from her. "Dismiss your assistant," I told Taigue. "What
I have to say is none of his business."
Taigue started to object, then changed his mind. With the reassurance
he so desperately needed at his very fingertips, he wasn't in the mood
to argue over trivialities. He took the patrolman's bludgeon gun, sent
him on his way, re-entered the cell and closed the door. He leaned
against the genuine steel panels, directed the muzzle of the gun at my
chest.
"Well, Mr. Bartlett?"
"You asked for this, Taigue," I said. "You wouldn't have it any other
way. Julia, come here."
She stepped to my side. Seizing the lapels of her Hester Prynne prison
dress, I ripped it down the middle and tore it from her body.
CHAPTER VI
Julia shrank back, trying to cover her nakedness with her arms. Taigue
became a statue, a statue staring with horrified eyes at a shining
goddess who had abruptly deteriorated into a mere woman. I tore the
gun from his grasp before he could recover himself and bludgeoned him
beneath the heart. But his eyes were glazed even before the charge
struck him. I looked at him disgustedly as he sank gasping to the
floor. The self-righteous idealism with which he had clothed Julia had
been even thinner than the earthly clothes I had ripped away.
I turned to Julia. She had retrieved the prison dress, had slipped into
it, and was improvising a catch to hold it together. Her face was white
but her eyes were dry. I searched those eyes anxiously. I don't know
why I should have been relieved to find understanding rather than anger
in them, but I was relieved--more relieved than I would have cared to
admit.
"Can you pilot a 'copter?" I asked.
She nodded. "I've been piloting them since I was twelve."
"There's a 'copter port on the roof. If we can reach it, we've got a
chance. I don't know where we'll go, but we'll go somewhere--"
"We'll go to Mars, Roger. If you're willing." She had finished
repairing her dress and stood calm and poised before me.
"This is no time for jokes," I said.
"And I'm not joking. There's a ramp not far from here that will take us
to the roof. Come on, Roger!"
We peered up and down the corridor. It was empty. I followed Julia down
the grim passage. In the distance, the arena entrance was bright with
afternoon sunlight. At the first intersection, she turned right. The
new passage was narrow, dimly lighted. At its far end a ponderous stone
door opened reluctantly to the pressure of our shoulders and we found
ourselves at the base of a sharply slanting ramp.
"You seem to know this place like a book," I said. "Were you ever in
the cell block before?"
She nodded. "I visited my mother often before she was stoned."
"Your mother! _Stoned?_"
"Yes. Stoned. That's why I'm a ghoul. Hurry, Roger!"
We started up the ramp. After a dozen yards, it turned abruptly, became
a steep spiral. Breathing was difficult, conversation impossible. Now
and then, a slit of a window looked out into the crowded amphitheater.
The port boasted one derelict 'copter and one guard. The guard had his
back to us when we crept cautiously onto the roof. He must have sensed
our presence, for he turned. But I doubt if he ever saw us. The charge
from my gun struck him in the side before he even completed his turn,
and he crumpled to the sun-drenched concrete.
We were aboard the 'copter in an instant. Julia's experienced fingers
made deft maneuvers on the control panel and then we were aloft,
soaring over the amphitheater, the sky blue above us, the stoning
platform a chiaroscuro of gray- and black-garbed men and women below
us. The arena proper was a bleak expanse of packed dirt, unrelieved by
a single blade of grass. I could hear the obscene murmur of the crowd
above the whirring of the blades.
There was a telescreen above the control panel. I turned it on to see
if our escape had been discovered. Apparently it had not been, for the
scene coming over the single channel was the same I had just witnessed,
viewed from a different angle. The telecamera had been set up opposite
the arena entrance so that the upper echelon members of the hierarchy,
who could afford such luxuries as TV sets, would have an excellent view
of the expected chastisement.
The announcer was intoning the sixth commandment over and over in a
deep resonant voice. I lowered the volume and turned to Julia. We were
over the parsonage apartments now, headed in a northerly direction.
"Don't you think it's time you told me where we're going?" I said.
"I told you before but you wouldn't believe me. We're going to Mars,
provided you're willing, of course. And I'm afraid you haven't much
choice."
"Stop being ridiculous, Julia. This is a serious situation!"
"I know, darling. I know. And if the ship has already blasted, it will
be a far more serious situation."
"What ship are you talking about?"
"The Cadillac-ship; the Ford-ship; the Plymouth-ship. Call it what you
will. Cars are made of metal, so are spaceships. By applying the right
temperatures, and the right techniques, dedicated people can transform
Cadillacs and Fords and Plymouths into highways to the stars."
I was staring at her. "The ghouls--"
"Are people like myself--the new Pilgrims, if you like. Pilgrims sick
of a society that evades population control by consigning its marriages
to a computer deliberately designed to produce incompatible unions that
will result in few, if any, children. Pilgrims who want no more of a
civilization victimized by an outdated biblical exhortation, exploited
by false prophets hiding behind misinterpretations of Freudian
terminology."
The hives were flickering beneath us, gaunt precipices flanking narrow
canyons. The verdure of the Cadillac Cemetery showed in the distance,
and beyond it, eroded hills rolled away.
"I'm glad you did alter our data cards," I said after a while. "But I
wish you'd done it for a different reason. I wish you could have loved
me, Julia."
"I do love you," Julia said. "You see, darling, I couldn't accompany
the colonists without a husband and I didn't want the kind of a husband
the integrator would have given me. So I computed my own marriage. That
was why I was so rude to you at the Cathedral. I--I was ashamed. Not
that it was the first marriage I'd computed, but all the others--like
Betz's and Kester's--involved people who were working on the ship,
people who were already in love. There--there wasn't anyone in the
group whom I cared for myself, so I had to look elsewhere. You and I
are ideally suited, Roger. I didn't need the data cards to tell me
that--all I needed was my eyes."
We were high above the Cadillac Cemetery and she was looking anxiously
ahead at the rolling, dun-colored hills. "If only they haven't left
yet," she said. "The last Cadillac we exhumed provided enough metal to
finish the ship. But perhaps they waited for us."
A sudden crescendo in the murmur of the waiting crowd in the Coliseum
brought the TV unit back to life. Slowly, the murmur rose into a great
vindictive roar. Glancing at the screen, I saw the reason why.
The charcoal-uniformed figure that had just stepped through the arena
entrance was unmistakable. The distance was considerable, and the eyes
appeared only as dark shadows on the thin, haunted face. But I could
visualize the terrible guilt burning in their depths; the consuming,
the unbearable guilt--
I watched the first stone with horror. It missed, rolled to a stop in
the dirt. The next one missed, too. But the one after it didn't, nor
the one that followed. Taigue sank to his knees, and the stones became
a murderous hail. And then, abruptly, it was all over, and Taigue lay
dead and bleeding on the stone-littered ground, the scarlet letter he
had pinned to his breast vivid in the merciless sunlight.
_Thou shalt not look at a woman and lust_--
Taigue had kept faith with himself to the end.
* * * * *
We were drifting over the hills. "There," Julia said suddenly. "There's
the one, Roger!"
It looked like all the others to me--drab, scarred by innumerable
gullies, lifeless. But when Julia opened the door of the cockpit and
leaned out and waved, the gullies rivened, and the whole hill opened up
like an enormous metallic flower.
I saw the ship then, the tall burnished ship poised on its concrete
launching platform. I saw its name--the _Mayflower II_.
We drifted down past the tapered prow, the gleaming flanks. The
other Pilgrims were already aboard. Betz and Kester waved to us as
we passed the open lock. We stepped out upon the launching platform.
The ship towered above us. The lathes and presses and furnaces of the
subterranean factory stood silent in the gloom around us.
I looked at Julia. Her eyes were iridescent with relieved tears, her
smile tremulous with happiness. "Mars, Roger," she whispered. "The ship
can make it. But perhaps the old colony has perished and we'll have to
start a new one. It won't be easy, darling. But will you come?"
I felt the way Samuel Fuller and Christopher Martin must have felt
five centuries ago, standing on a lonely wharf in Southampton. The way
William White and John Alden must have felt--
No, not quite the way John Alden had felt. I already had _my_ Priscilla
Mullins. I bent and kissed her. Then, hand in hand, we ascended the
spiral gang-plank of the _Mayflower II_ to begin our journey to the New
World.
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