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Title: Fugue
Author: Stephen Marlowe
Release Date: April 14, 2023 [eBook #70549]
Language: English
Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FUGUE ***
FUGUE
By Stephen Marlowe
A NOVELET OF THE FUTURE
Most people actually know a good deal
more than they may be aware of at
any given moment. And perhaps one
of the functions of dreams is to remind
us of what we know, but will not let
ourselves know on a conscious level....
"This revolt is hopeless, Ker-jon, because it only
strikes at the symptoms of unrest, without touching
the roots. You may succeed--you may unseat those
now in authority. But whoever moves in will only
perpetuate the tyranny against which you revolted--renew
the same oppression, under different slogans."
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Science Fiction Quarterly November 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_The Space Ark left its home planet, Urth, two thousand years ago
Canopus IV time, arriving here in the Canopus System some five
hundred years later. That is all we know for certain; the rest is mere
conjecture._
_Two salient features of the Space Ark's unique social institutions
stand out above the myth and fairytale of our ancestors, however. The
first is the fabled story of the Mutant-makers, and when one studies
the conditions surrounding this phenomenon, the fabled story becomes
cold scientific fact. On a giant balanced-terrarium of a ship which
was largely automatic, seemingly isolated forever in the vastnesses of
interstellar space, our ancestors lacked even a modicum of external
challenge. They thus had to create their own artificial stimuli or face
an inevitable retreat down the ladder of decadence to barbarism. It
appears that for a time they went too far: they created mutants. These
in turn gave rise to a rigid caste-system on the Ark, a system which
afforded an extreme in internal challenges and responses._
_The second salient feature of the Space Ark's social institutions
was its favoring of the biolo-mental sciences over the chemi-physical
sciences. This, again, proves to be an inevitable by-product of
the Space Ark's static environment. No physical world existed:
physics became a useless dogma, a meaningless jumble of terms
which bore no semantic relation to the world-at-large. On the
other hand, the Space Ark was a universe of introversion. The
biolo-mental sciences leaped ahead of what had developed into a
something-less-than-static-civilization. This, as we have seen, gave
rise to the Mutant-makers. But on a constructive level, it fostered
the growth of a new science of psychology, vastly superior to the old
Urth science, and, some suspect, considerably more refined than our
own mental sciences. A particular manifestation of this lost science
was the ability to project tri-dimensional images of dreams, to record
them while the conscious mind slumbered, to play them back later and to
interpret them unerringly...._
--_Andoos-Rob't_, A Short History of the Abortive Social Institutions
of the Urth-Canopus Space Ark, _Introduction_.
* * * * *
Ker-jon awoke suddenly, sitting bolt-upright in bed. It was
cool--night-period temperatures always were--but fine droplets of
perspiration dotted Ker-jon's forehead and dark sweat-stains discolored
the armpits of his sleeping robe.
Over and over, one thought twisted through his mind; he was not
a mutant; he was one-hundred percent normal _homo sapiens_ and a
bio-technician on the hydroponics staff at that. Yet--why did he always
dream the same dream of a big hairless Ker-jon, his bald, shining dome
topped with the three ridges of flesh which had manifested themselves
in a series of mutations during the generation of his birth? Why did
that dream always follow the same path....
He chuckled in spite of himself. The psych-technicians might yield
the answer this time. He removed the electrodes from his temples,
snapped the recorder off, rewound the dream-tape. Yes, he'd let the
psycho-techs play with it in the morning, despite Cluny-ann's warning.
When the morning gong sounded, Ker-jon crept softly from his room. His
way would lead past the quarters of the female bio-technicians, and he
hoped to avoid a meeting with Cluny-ann. But the slim, fair-haired maid
knew of his appointment with the psych-tech, and she had other ideas.
Ker-jon barely got past the portal to the female quarters when its door
slid into the wall with a faintly audible hiss. Arms akimbo, Cluny-ann
stood there facing him, the crown of her head hardly reaching his chin.
"Good morning, Ker-jon," she greeted him coolly.
"Please, I'm busy."
"I only wanted to see you for a moment, Ker-jon; just a moment, that's
all. Will you take breakfast with me?"
"No. I said I have an appointment."
"You're always rushing around like the enzymes we feed into the
'ponic-vats. I'm sure your appointment will keep. I'm also sure it is
unwise, this appointment."
Ker-jon prayed silently that she wouldn't part her lips invitingly for
a kiss, because then indeed he might decide to forego his appointment
with the psych-tech. Apparently, that did not enter Cluny-ann's mind.
She merely walked out into the corridor, hands still on hips, blocking
his path.
"Tomorrow we try to smash the Mutant-makers," she told him. "But today
you must carry your dream with you and have it interpreted. Won't it
keep? If something lurks in that dream which holds the key to our
plans--_poof!_ No more plans. Stay, Ker-jon."
Gently but firmly, he pushed her out of the way, smiled for a moment
when she struggled futilely against the muscles of his good right arm.
He said, as he went on down the corridor, "We can take lunch together.
I'll feel more like eating after this nightmare is explained, anyway."
* * * * *
The psych-tech, Ab'nath-Jawg, wore an immaculate white smock over
his scrawny frame, a pair of spectacles over his big, watery eyes.
Ker-jon saw no reason for the white smock; perhaps tradition said all
psych-techs were to wear white smocks, and that was that.
"Ker-jon," Ab'nath mumbled, looking at his records, "bio-tech first
class, non-mutant, no mutations in the family line. Right?"
Ker-jon nodded.
"Your request for a visit says you've been having a dream which has
recurred frequently. An unpleasant dream?"
"Ummmm, no; not in itself. But I think--"
"That somehow its implications are unpleasant for you--is that it? Yes?
I see. May I have the tape, please?"
Wordless, Ker-jon handed him the little spool, waited while the
psych-tech snapped it into place in a small projecting machine. After
that, Ab'nath flicked a switch, and the lights in the little room
dimmed.
In the center of the room stood a large transparent cube, as long in
each of its three dimensions as a tall man. Within it now, lights
pulsed, flashed, coalesced. Then they settled back, playing only at the
corners, waiting.
Ker-jon held his breath. A tri-dimensional, full color replica of his
dream filled the cube.
There was Ker-jon, but a hairless, three-ridged-mutant Ker-jon,
and there in the crook of his left arm a slim blonde girl who
could have been Cluny-ann, except that she too bore the marks of
a mutant--different strain this time, with delicate silver scales
covering parts of her fair body. Under a large bell-jar in the
foreground, a compact black machine hummed shrilly, a light above its
squat main body flashing on and off, on and off.
The queerest part of the dream was its background. Great concentric
circles of color closed in on the bell-jar, broad bands of green, blue,
red, orange, yellow. When first he'd had the dream, Ker-jon thought
the circles emanated from the bell-jar, but clearly, this was not so.
Rather, the bands of color surrounded it, almost as if they somehow
attempted to crush it.
The dream Ker-jon did not think they could. He balled his right fist
and struck down once, savagely, at the glass. It broke, but the machine
hummed on and on. Ker-jon shrank back in horror, with a feeling of
helplessness.
And that was all. Back to the cube came its flashing lights.
Ab'nath-Jawg scratched his balding head. "A very odd dream," he
admitted. "Do you know the girl?"
"She is Cluny-ann, my betrothed."
"A mutant?" demanded the psych-tech.
"No. But then, neither am I."
"Yet you both look like mutants in the dream. Interesting."
Ker-jon frowned. "I didn't come here to show you something interesting;
I came to have the dream explained. Last night was the sixth time. The
same pattern, no change."
"Relax, my friend. These things take time. Strange, we don't understand
the radio with which we communicate between sections of our Ark, but
histories will tell you that both radio and dream-machine function on
the same principle. I don't understand radio; I can only guess, but the
dream-machine I know. The recorder is stimulated by electro-magnetic
waves from the cerebrus when you dream. The projector takes these
vibrations and reproduces the dream itself. A to B, back to A again.
Simple."
Ker-jon shook his head wearily. "I didn't come for that, either. I know
the theory--"
"Patience! Will you have patience? I will submit the record to a staff
meeting of psych-techs this afternoon, and we'll have an interpretation
ready for you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow! Tomorrow might be too late."
"That's ridiculous, Ker-jon. Even if the dream manifests itself again
tonight, so what? Tomorrow is soon enough."
Ker-jon shook his head sadly, took his leave. He couldn't tell the
psych-tech that tomorrow might be too late because by then his
fellow-conspirators would be floundering in rebellion. It all depended
on him, of course: he had access to the master controls in the 'ponics
room. Few people did, and certainly no mutants. Ker-jon, then; but
Ker-jon had a dream which bothered him, which awakened him, sweating
and afraid, in the middle of the night....
* * * * *
Night-period. Dull blue lights casting eerie shadows in a little-used
back room of the library. And six men who wove their plans for a
_coup-d'Ark_ when morning came.
Ker-jon sat on the floor with Cluny-ann, squatting near the dusty
stacks which held the un-used physical science books. Not a volume here
had been disturbed for perhaps a score of years--perhaps more. Why
study the physical sciences when there was no real physical world with
which to correlate your findings? Why study them when your universe was
bounded with walls of glistening beryl-steel?
Cluny-ann sat near Ker-jon, but she kept her back to him, angrily.
She'd hardly spoken a word since he returned from the psych-tech's
office, and lunch had been a sorry social failure.
Now Flam-harol got up, paced back and forth for a time, the dome of his
three-ridged head gleaming under the blue lights. He licked his lips,
fingered for a moment the central flesh-ridge atop his skull. Then he
spoke in his deep, booming voice. "I can't help it if I'm nervous; we
mutants have waited long and long for this--"
A chorus of "ayes" seconded that, and Flam-harol went on. "We can
afford no mistakes. We do or we die--tomorrow. One slip--just
one--could be fatal. But in the end, if all goes well, we'll smash the
Mutant-making machinery, we'll smash the rule of the Mutant-maker. I
don't have to tell you what that means. Whither we came from, that
doesn't matter. A world called Urth, but I cannot picture Urth--a huge
world a hundred times or more larger than the Ark, a world where you
live on the outside, not on the inside.
"I cannot picture it, and so I won't try. But this I can picture. A
hundred years ago, they started making mutants, to satisfy a warped
craving for superiority. Half the people on the Ark now are mutants.
Ridge-head, scaled, toe-less--what's the difference? Mutants all,
living in the worst quarters, relegated to inferior positions, scorned,
ridiculed....
"Tomorrow, we end it; by evening, no more. Equality on the Ark, yes,
but that's not of primary importance. We will destroy the machinery
which can make mutants. No fresh variants will arise, and that is more
important. Now, your plans."
Another ridge-head stood up. "At ten hours, twelve minutes, my men take
the astro-room."
A chunky mutant with scales covering his chest: "We converge, along
with Flam-harol's squad, on the armory. Also at ten hours, twelve
minutes."
Second scaled mutant: "The Mutant-maker's quarters. We take the reins
of government at ten hours, thirty five minutes."
Lithely, Cluny-ann got to her feet. "The Chamber of Change, at ten
hours, forty minutes. I lead my women there, and it is hoped that with
so much confusion elsewhere, we'll be able to destroy the machinery.
But--"
"But what?" Flam-harol said. "We appreciate the aid of you
non-mutants. Yet if you have any doubts--"
"It's not that," Cluny-ann told him. "I don't think our revolution will
be enough; that's all."
"What more is there?"
"I don't know! If I knew, that would be different. I suspect that the
whole thing may start over again before we know it."
Flam-harol shook his head. "I don't understand."
"Well, something like this. We're seeking to destroy effects, not
causes. Whatever the causes are, we should root them out first."
"The Mutant-maker and his government are the cause."
"No. I mean deeper than that. I mean--oh, I don't know! But something
hovers in the background; I can feel it. A cause, a deepseated cause
apart from any mutant-non-mutant bickering...."
Ker-jon stood up, smiling. "Don't mind her," he said. "Cluny-ann isn't
happy unless she can worry, I think. Now, my job is this: at ten hours
I lock myself in control in the 'ponics room, and if necessary, we can
hold that as a sword over any ornery heads. I'll be ready to cut off
the air-supply to any section of the Ark that needs such treatment,
Flam-harol."
The big ridge-head nodded. "That appears to be it, then. Till tomorrow,
when I hope to meet you all again at noon...."
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."
3
The rescue proved so incredibly simple that Ker-jon almost couldn't
believe his senses. With his two uniformed companions he made his way
down the length of the Ark and deep within its bowels, almost to where
the unknown engines which propelled them through space thundered and
roared and pounded within their casings. Here in a deserted storeroom
the prisoners were kept. And Ker-jon's uniformed companions walked
right in, just like that, unquestioned by the guards who stood watch in
the corridor.
The fight was brief. Unleashed, the prisoners swarmed all over their
guards, killing them quite expertly, and quite ruthlessly. No time for
an alarm, and the engines drowned all sounds of combat. Towards the
end, Ker-jon had to turn away. What the mutants did to their captors
wasn't pretty. But in a sense he couldn't blame them--what was the old
expression about the shoe being on the other foot?
Flam-harol stormed out into the corridor, his face a bloody mask. But
he smiled grimly. "This I like! No plans, no preparations--and they
don't expect us! We'll have the Ark in half an hour...."
Behind him Cluny-ann stumbled out, one of her eyes blackened, her jaw
swollen. She stopped short and stared foolishly when she saw Ker-jon.
"Then--then you didn't desert us? Some even thought you'd betrayed us!"
"And I once was betrothed to a beautiful girl," Ker-jon said, laughing.
"You should see yourself now--"
She pecked at his lips with a brief kiss, came back for more, snuggling
in close, but Flam-harol's voice roared at them. "The longer we stay
here, the less chance we'll have. Are you two coming?"
In a wave, the prisoners surged forward, pounding up the corridor. No
order, no discipline--but Ker-jon knew they didn't need it. What they
had was enough: superiority in numbers, surprise....
It seemed hardly a moment later, and they swarmed all over the door to
the Mutant-maker's quarters. Oddly, it crossed Ker-jon's mind that they
didn't even know the man's name. He ruled in anonymity, with his title,
with the fear that a night-raid could bring, dragging a man and his
wife to the Chamber of Change, assuring the next generation that they
too would have their mutants, in ever increasing numbers, for sport,
for ridicule.
Ker-jon never learned how the door was forced, but suddenly it stood
ajar.
Through it streamed the mutants.
Ker-jon found himself in a wild melee. Needle-guns _zipped_; men fell.
But always others surged forward, and the defenders' ranks thinned.
Ker-jon saw one of Flam-harol's lieutenants fall, mortally wounded.
Three mutants took his place, and one of them had retrieved a
needle-gun from a fallen guard. Other weapons appeared among the
mutants, guns, knives, make-shift clubs. Nothing could stop them.
For himself, Ker-jon fought only half-heartedly. The swarm carried him
forward against the defenders, but he struck out only when pressed.
Strangely, he felt an odd detachment. He wasn't really a part of this
carnage; no, he'd been swept into it, helplessly, and now he watched.
It all seemed anti-climactic, pointless. Why? He asked himself that
over and over again, turning once more to the battle when he found the
answer. Did the meeting with the old albino mutant somehow hold the
clue? Did it? Now _there_ was a ridiculous notion!
* * * * *
The wave after wave of mutants pushed forward, and Ker-jon hovered
close to Cluny-ann, protecting, shielding, diverting any foe who
might single her out. She was a spit-fire, he knew, for all her small
size--he'd seen her cut loose in the female gymnastic tournaments. But
he could sense that she hung back, even as he did--unwilling to enter
the fray. Had she once said something about this not being the final
answer? He wondered how she'd have fared in a discussion with the old
albino....
And then it was over. They pushed through a final portal, came upon a
large apartment with strange, impossibly antique furniture. In a far
corner cowered a little man, a little old man--smaller and more ancient
than the albino. He cringed away from them, his limbs trembled. He
babbled, "I surrender, I surrender, I--"
Flam-harol laughed once, then cut him down with a needle-gun. The end
of the Mutant-maker, the man who controlled the destiny of all those
within the Ark. Simple, no theatrics. Smile and cut him down with a
needle-gun. Could that one gesture usher in a new era? Ker-jon did not
know, but more and more the words of the albino returned, swirling
through his brain. _Just a reversal of roles...._
Flam-harol sat down on the plushly upholstered chair. "Will some of you
take your clubs to the Chamber of Change and smash it? I'm a little
tired--"
* * * * *
A week later. Flam-harol had taken the dead Mutant-maker's quarters for
his own. Now he sat there with his lieutenants--two mutants, ridge-head
variety, and Ker-jon--issuing directives.
"I've given it a lot of thought," he told them. "Sweeping changes must
be made if we're to right a nasty situation."
They all agreed.
"First, the jobs of the highest skill will go to ridge-heads.
Turnabout, eh, my friends? Henceforth, ridge-heads are bio-technicians."
Two of his lieutenants smiled, nodded their satisfaction. Ker-jon
said: "I don't know if that's wise. For one thing, you haven't had
training along those lines; you're liable to botch--"
"That's fantastic. If the non-mutants could do it, we can, too. Shall
we vote?"
They did. Three to one.
"You see," Flam-harol explained, "we deserve those jobs."
"Well, what about the current bio-techs?"
"Oh, them. Why, they'll be menials, of course. Not discriminated
against, not really; it's just that they've held their lofty positions
too long."
"It wasn't their fault--" Ker-jon began.
Flam-harol waved a hand deprecatingly. "If you're worried about
yourself and that girl--what's her name?--forget it. You'll be an
exception. I figured on making you go-betweens, assuring peaceful
relations between mutants and non-mutants."
"No, that wasn't it at all. I still don't like--"
"We have voted, have we not?"
"Y-yes."
"Very well. Next, scaled mutants shall be astro-techs."
"You can't do that!" Ker-jon cried. "A man doesn't necessarily fit a
job because he happens to be one type of mutant or another. I'd suggest
a series of tests, instead; let each man fill the job for which he is
qualified."
"Unfair," Flam-harol said. "The non-mutants have had training; they'd
win all the top positions. Shall we vote?"
Three to one.
"Albinos will be police and administrative workers. Finally--"
"Just a minute. Don't you realize that albinos have weak constitutions?
You're relegating them to a position which they won't be able to fill."
Flam-harol smiled blandly. "If the police are weak, then the real power
will remain in the hands of the bio-technicians. That will make for an
era of peace and good-will, and it will assure one thing: we'll never
have a military government."
"I hope you're right about that peace and good-will," one of the
ridge-heads said. "All week long, there's been rioting in the
'low-decks area. Non-mutants on one side, mutants on the other."
"That will end," Flam-harol assured him. "I have confidence. Now, the
job will be to get things going as quickly as possible. I want those
directives carried out at once. The sooner we begin, the sooner we
mutants will have a chance to live the way we should...."
_This is what I fought for_, Ker-jon thought. _So one tyrant could take
the place of another. Maybe Flam-harol doesn't know it; probably he'd
be the last one to admit it. Nevertheless...._
Aloud, Ker-jon said: "I resign."
"You what?"
"I resign. I quit. Run the Ark any way you like, Flam-harol. I want no
part of it."
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....
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