Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction 11th Part 3

Nick was always the first to arrive. He approached in short dashes, keeping a wary eye out for the Enemy, which today was Comanches. He dropped behind a case labelled INSTRUMENTS CHF IPST X-8852 HANDLE WITH CARE, and lying flat on his stomach turned his head to glance upward at the black stencilled letters which before his very eyes melted into a signpost saying FORT AUSTIN 8 MILES. A flint-pointed arrow buzzed over him and stuckquivering in the sign; when he squinched up his eyes tightly it almost became real. Slowly, he wriggled forward from the shadow of the cases into the bright, reddish sunlight that came through the dome.

A swift glance to right and left, and he could emerge into the open.

Somebody said, "Bang! Gotcha."

It was Snooky. He had climbed the crate mountain, and from its summit lay p.r.o.ne with his rifle pointing at Nick. The rifle was made from a two-foot section of aluminum tubing and a sc.r.a.p of styrofoam.

Nick dodged back. "You did not," he retorted. "Bang! I got you."

Snooky fell dead. Then he got up and scrambled down the mountainside, jumping from box to box. His lower lip was thrust forward.

"That's no fair," he complained. "Every time anybody shoots you, you always say they missed. Why don't I get to kill you sometime?"

"Oh, h.e.l.l," said Nick. "Who cares? Who wants to play this kid stuff anyway?"

Snooky, who was just seven, looked at him in admiration. "h.e.l.l, yes," he said.

Nick leaned against the tight, resilient skin of the dome and stared outside.

"I'm going out again after school," he said.

"Are you? Are you really, Nick?"

"Sure. Why not? n.o.body ever knows."

"Knows what?" asked Judith. She and O-Sato had come up hand in hand while the boys were talking.

"When we go outside."

"Oh, that."

"Are you coming with me?" Nick demanded.

"Maybe. Well, if O-Sato wants to."

The j.a.panese girl shrugged. "I have to do slide rule ex-ercises this afternoon. Maybe tomorrow."

"Ah-h-h-h! Slide rule. That junk," Nick sneered. "That's for beginners."

"I like it," O-Sato said, with her wide, white smile. She never took offense.

The others were coming: the Dalgleish twins, nine-year-old Jon Bessemer who was only a month younger than Nick, the Firdusi kids, and littleJustinian Brandeis, who was five and lived in a world of his own.

Judith hugged Sally Firdusi, her creamy cheek against the other girl's brown one like cameo and sardonyx in a seal ring.

"Where's Virginie?" she said.

"In bed. She's got the swell-ups."

"Will she die?" Justinian asked, his blue eyes round and clear.

"Course not, stupid. n.o.body ever dies of the swell-ups except grownups."

"Yeah. That's why they're called grownups," said Nick. "Grown-up, swell-up, fall-out, fall dead."

He swung away from the others, staring grimly through the plastic. Judith came behind him and put her hand lightly on his shoulder.

"What's the matter, Nicky?" she said.

"Nothing."

"If you want, I'll go outside with you. So will the others."

"I don't care." He turned to look at her, biting his lip. "I get sick of it, every day just the same. School, ch.o.r.es, the same old games, the same old stuff: 'Never go outside without an adult,' 'Wear your mask,' 'Remember you are from Earth.' h.e.l.l!" He kicked sullenly at the base of the dome, at the sealing strip beyond which waited the rusty sand. "I'm tired of canned shows, and these cowboys and Indians and out-laws of Sherwood Forest, and all that c.r.a.p. Outside..."

He looked again at the scarlet and ochre branches which protruded above the ravine, only a few hundred yards away. "That's real, out there," he whispered. "Not all that junky three-vee, or old movies, or stupid books.

I've read all the books. I want somebody to play with."

Judith drew back, hurt. "You've got me. And all of us."

"Yeah. Bunch of little snot-noses. And the rest of you-Jon and you and O-Sato and Virginie-you're always wor-ried about going out."

"But if they caught us, Nicky...?"

"So what? What could they do? Send us back to the ash-pile?"

"But we do go out with you. Gosh, you sound as though we never do."

"And isn't it fun? Isn't it? More fun than the domes?"

She nodded. "Sure, it's fun. If they'd just let us alone. Let us go out whenever we wanted to. But they're so afraid..."He shrugged. "Jee-susl Grownups are afraid of everything."

"It's nine-thirty," O-Sato broke in. "We'd better get crack-ing. Aruite ikimasho."

Justinian took her hand. "What's that mean?"

"Let's walk," she replied. "Are you learning French from Virginie, too?"

"Hai," said Justinian. "Je fais de man mieux."

Nick scratched his bristly head-the hair was just be-ginning to grow in again after an attack of blue fungus. "I'll have to ask my Dad if he needs me," he said. "He told me yesterday he wanted me to help him clean up the observa-tory."

Nick mimicked him. "Ill hafta ask my Dad. Okay, sonny. Don't forget to wear your mask."

He could not have said why he was so bitter. After all, today was no different from any other day. But maybe that was the trouble. It was like those houses you used to make out of blocks, when you were little: you piled one block on another block on another block and all of a sudden it was too high and the whole thing collapsed. Too many days like ev-ery other day. A restlessness burned in him; a need for elbow room, for s.p.a.ce, for privacy and play somewhere out of the cramped quarters of the city of domes. He was the oldest of the children; maybe that was why he felt it most. And par-ticularly now, in the warm season between the sandstorms and the freeze, the season when things began to move and stir out there, when the sheltered ravines came alive and there was so much to see, so many places to explore, so much to pretend.

Jon felt it, too, and so did the others, but they had other diversions, equally compelling. Jon and O-Sato found a deep and peculiar joy in mathematics and in the jobs they were allotted: Jon loved working in the observatory with its shining instruments, the ticking of the clockwork, the regular, measured, quiet routine, and O-Sato could spend hour after hour with number puzzles and log tables. As for Judy, she had her ups and downs: she was as good as any boy in mak-ing up games and plays, and outside she was as quick as he in the shifting sands, and as bold in exploration, but then for long periods she would turn to the books in the Library, and lose herself in the same old stories and seem to be quite content. As for the younger kids-Nick shrugged. They didn't know yet what they wanted.

If I only had a scooter of my own, he thought. Or a copter. I'd go and go and go...

He lost a little of his restlessness in school. Monsieur Bernstein was a good teacher for whom there were no such things as dull subjects. "I teach living," he said, and so the children could never be quite sure what they might find set before them on any given day. He spoke five languages without a trace of an accent, and one of his favorite games for en-liveningcla.s.s periods was to switch from language to language to see how quickly the children could follow him.

"Nick!" he might snap. "Dites-moi, qui etait Plantonp Re-pondez en russe, s'il vous plait."

"Filosof grechiskti, tovarishch professor."

"Nick wa wake ga wakatte imasu. Sta a voi, Signor Giannino."

Or he .might, in the same way, jump unexpectedly from one theme to the next, as this morning a chance question led him from a discussion of Plato to the Greek city-states, to Pythagoras and the magic of numbers, to magic in general, to animal totems, to primitive societies, to the extinction of the Tasmanians, and so to a brief discussion of ecology. None of the children understood everything he said, but often the attempt to follow him was fun, and even the younger ones, even Justinian trailing wide-eyed behind, got glimpses of a large and exciting meaning which was as good as informa-tion; perhaps better.

"It may be that the true answer for what happened to our planet lies in ecology," he said, rather sadly. "You understand, my dears, I am speaking of the planet Earth, not of this planet. Man is an explosive force. When he is threat-ened, he blows up in every direction. As his social structures grew more complicated, he could not live side by side with the predators-with beasts of prey. Then came the turn of everything with sharp teeth which might be suspect. The coyote, for example, which might eat one lamb, had to be wiped out, even though ecologists showed that the coyote was worth his weight in gold to farmers because he main-tained the balance of nature by eating mice which otherwise would swarm in great numbers. Naturally, with the coyote gone, the mice multiplied. This led to vast campaigns of poisoning with a nice, nonselective poison called 1080, for which there was no antidote, and while many mice died, so did many birds which preyed upon the mice, and so did any animal-cats or dogs-which ate poisoned mice, and so did deer which ate the poisoned baits, and so even did some men who ate the deer.

"Man surrounded himself with circles of death. Fear, hatred, and a maniac desire for security-as if security were the ultimate in happiness!-spread around him areas of dev-astation. And this, too, happened between men and other men. The hint of sharp teeth could only be met by cam-paigns of destruction, wider and wider circles of slaughter until there was nothing left. And all this in the name of security."

Jon, wrinkling his forehead, said, "Do you mean, maestro, that security isn't any good? Because, gosh, that's what all the work of the domes is for, isn't it? And that's why they're always telling us, 'Wear your masks' and 'Don't go outside without an adult' and so on."

Monsieur Bernstein nodded. "I know," he said. "It's the way the Committee has decided. I'm afraid my voice is a minority voice. Still, perhaps it won't do you any harm to hear me. And I think that security is a myth. If there were any such thing as being totally secure from all harm, life would end.Life itself is a never-ending struggle on the part of protoplasm merely to keep from collapsing into a puddle of water. Non, non! The only totally safe place is in the grave."

Conan Dalgleish, with his chin resting on his palms, said, "Maitre Bernstein, are there any Indians left on the Earth?"

The teacher smiled wanly. "No, my dear," he replied, and Nick turned in his seat to glare scornfully at Conan. Any-body knew there wasn't anything left there but ash and craters and radioactive jungles, but sometimes the younger kids couldn't grasp the fact, particularly since they saw quite dif-ferent scenes in their picture books, movies, and the three- vee theatre.

He had gone through that confusion, and had grown out of it. He knew that "Earth" was so much bunk, like the mention of something called "heaven" in some of the books. It was one more make-believe place, something the grownups used as an ill.u.s.tration of their own desires, something on which to pin more of their fears.

He said, "And what about here? Is that why there aren't any other people on this planet except us? Because of that ec-ecology?"

"We don't know," Monsieur Bernstein said. "We just haven't found out. Ten years seems to you youngsters like a long time, but when you're establishing yourself in a brand new place, it isn't much. It took us half that time just to get an economy going that would support us: the hydroponics, experimental gardening outside in various areas, power plant, tool replacement manufacturing, a thousand different needs. There are only a handful of us, and the planet is very big. In the past five years we've only begun to scratch the sur-face, explore a tiny fraction of it, just begin to find out something about its life and its ecology." He laughed. "There it is again, that word. I think we must really devote some time to it. Let me see ... you younger ones will have your reading lessons tomorrow. And you older children, suppose you read up on the subject in the Library and come ready to tell me what you think the ecology of our domes is."

He dismissed the cla.s.s, and the children went off to the creche for lunch.

After lunch, the younger ones had to take their naps. O-Sato settled in the study corner with her slide rule, Jon went off to the observatory, Judith and Sally Firdusi decided to go to the Library, and Snooky and Kamil Firdusi got interested in the chemistry set which occupied more and more of their time.

Nick found himself deserted. He hunched sulkily into the big main dome and hung around near Air Lock One.

A man driving a scooter loaded with sheet metal yelled, "Hey, sonny, get out from underfoot!" Two men carrying a long section of plastic hose brushed past him, and one said, "Look out, kid. Watch where you're dreaming."He strolled nearer the Lock, and a man taking wet-and-dry-bulb readings said, "Don't go out without your mask, buster. And not by yourself."

Nick turned away. Sonny. Kid. Buster. They were all so big, so sure of themselves, and so worried all the time. He was ready to snarl. He made himself invisible, as a child can, walking like a small lithe shadow along the edges of things, skirting all activity, until he came to the stores and wormed his way among the crates and boxes and containers. He came to the emergency air lock. He dropped his mask kit and his pill-pak. He spun the wheel and let himself into the chamber, and then went outside.

The earth, here near the domes, was dry and gravelly and crunched like sugar under the soft soles of his moccasins. He glided swiftly away, watching now for the real Enemy who might suddenly shout at him to return, or ask him why he wasn't wearing his mask. The air was thin and clear and in-vigorating, and he grinned with happiness thinking of the stale disinfectant smell of the mask which he had left behind. He slid over the edge of the ravine like a weasel, los-ing himself among the scarlet boles.

The ravine was nearly half a mile wide and ran on and on toward the distant hills, a great crack in the friable earth. It was not very deep, but it was alive. There was a different quality to the very air you breathed: it was spicy with the smell of growing things, with the pale blue fringe plant and the yellow flowers that drooped from immensely tall hairlike stalks, and the crisp little cl.u.s.ters of green and lavender like springy lettuces, and even from the smooth rubbery trunks of the fungus trees. Tiny winged things dipped and hummed and whizzed. No one could see him here. He spun round like a crazy thing, and galloped madly down the steep slope to the thread of river at the bottom, where jointed and armored worms swam in the pink mud-stained water.

All these things had laborious names given to them by the grownups, names like Aquilegia and Chrysomelida, which meant nothing. He and Judith and the others had given them their own names, their real names: Fringe Plant, Yellow Sneezer, Snappers, Snicket Bush, names which meant what the plants and creatures were. Sitting on his hunkers beside the water, he carefully tickled one of the snappers with a long gra.s.sy stem and laughed aloud when the thing whipped it-self wildly back and forth, broke in half, and swam off in opposite directions.

He got up and stretched, hugely and comfortably. He strolled downstream, on the lookout for anything that might be new since last he had come here.

All his bitterness was gone as if it had never been; he was in his own place, among friends.

The ochre-patched red fungus trees thinned and gave way to crosseyes, slender feathery things that cl.u.s.tered thickly about the water dropping their hard double fruit, each brown rind decorated with two comical white eyes.

He pushed his way between their s.h.a.ggy trunks and stopped short. A silver snake was feeding on the crosseye fruit. You had to be careful of silver snakes: their long beaks were full of sharp little teeth, and although they were timid they could give you a nasty nip. Jon had been bitten by one once, when he had tried to pick up the shining, handsome thing, stretchedout on a fallen fungus tree, and the bite had festered. The children had had to invent a story about his scratching his hand on a metal case in the store-pile.

Nick watched it, wishing there were some way to tame it. His hands itched to take hold of that many-legged, smooth-muscled thing, to stroke its odd, funny head and its glistening blue-white scales.

Softly, he picked up a couple of crosseye fruits and be-gan edging forward.

The snake saw him and drew back upon itself suspiciously. He crouched and held out his hand with the fruit balanced on his palm. With tiny, inching steps he moved himself closer to the beast.

The creature crooked back its head on the delicate neck, and c.o.c.ked first one bright eye, and then the other, at the hand, the fruit, and the boy.

Suddenly, from above, came a flap of wings that set the fronds of the trees rustling; with a flash of scales the snake shot into the water and vanished downstream. Nick dropped the fruit and stood up, gaping.

The thing that sat before him on the ground had a sur-prised face like the owl in his natural history book, with great round feathery eyes and a soft, downy body. Its upper limbs, with their wide sail-like wings, were folded in the att.i.tude of a man raising his hands in astonishment; below them, a second pair of arms had small monkey-fingers that were clasped across its fat belly. Its legs were jointed up-right. It was no more than two feet high.

Under the round eyes was coiled a black watch-spring tentacle, like the tongue of an earthly b.u.t.terfly.

He had seen these things before, but usually from a great distance. One he had seen from close up had shot out its long tentacle and killed a kind of large snail; he had stepped out of hiding to see better and the owl-thing had flown away.

But this one seemed very tame. It looked at him impas-sively, turning its head from side to side, and then it uttered a soft chuckle.

Nick grinned. He stood perfectly still so as not to frighten the owl-thing, and he said, "h.e.l.lo."

"h.e.l.lo," said the owl-thing, and then made a ticking, chirping sound, "tk tk, tsp."

Nick imitated the sound. "Tk, tk, tsp. h.e.l.lo."

The owl-thing hopped a little closer. It burst into a perfect torrent of clucks, chirps, and ticks. Then it suddenly said, "Don't forget your mask."

Nick's mouth dropped open. He shouted with laughter.

At the unexpected noise, the owl-thing leaped back and sat quivering, its tentacle coiling and uncoiling nervously. But Nick choked down his amus.e.m.e.nt and stood quietly until the creature began to hop towards him again.Slowly, Nick lowered himself to the ground, and made himself comfortable.

After a moment, the owl-thing shook out its wings, furled them again, and seemed to settle it-self too.

It held out one wizened hand and lifted a wrinkled brown finger. Nick snickered; it looked just like Monsieur Bernstein about to make a point.

It squeaked: "-!"

"Sure, I get you," Nick said, keeping his voice low and soothing. "You mean 'one'."

"One," said the owl-thing. "-!"

"-!" squeaked Nick.

The owl-thing held up two fingers. "-!-!"

"Two," said Nick.