West Of The Sun Part 34

PAUL: We have shelter, clothing, enough to eat--

MINIAAN: And drink.

PAUL: What we call a family, Sally, is made up of members of all three races. Such a unit may have seven or eight adults or more. Shelter, food--the basic needs are supplied by each family working for itself; the large family unit distributes the labor pretty well; and, if any family was stricken with misfortune (none has been so far) the others would all help as a matter of course. Now, we do have the germs of beginning industries in textiles, sugar--

MINIAAN: Wine making.

ABARA: The lady is pied.

MINIAAN: The lady is not pied. Only very happy, and Vestoia is a dead city, and the little illuama will be making their nests where--Oh, Abara, you venerable ruin, I love you, I love you....

ABARA: Well, not right here in front of all these nice people....

MUKERJI: Beautiful way of life. Oh, here's Muson. Have we drunk to everybody? Seems as though we must have overlooked somebody, earlier.

NISANA: I don't think so. Yes, we have. Let's drink to the olifants.

WRIGHT: And their seven calves....

PAUL: In textiles, for instance--Nisana does no housework because her worktime is at the loom; each household sends somebody over to work in the fiber and sugar plantations across the lake. The system works, Sally, in this very tiny community where everyone knows and respects everyone else, where all the laws and customs encourage the ironing out of differences before they become serious. And so far, work has never become oppressive. Most of it we enjoy; the boring, unpleasing jobs are shared because we know they have to be done and we don't want anyone to have to carry too much of their weight. And so far, we don't hunger for the complex and fascinating possessions we knew on Earth. Such hungers will come. Communities will grow. The best laws will fail sometimes; there will be disputes, mistakes, injustices. But we are forewarned by memories of Earth. Doc, I'm trying to say things you could say better--

WRIGHT: No. Go on.

PAUL: Well.... We plan, tentatively, a hundred family units here at Jensen City, a population of maybe a thousand adults, no larger. When that point is reached (several years away) then we must plan and build another town, probably here on the island. At that point we add new problems and perplexities. We may not need a monetary system until there are several towns; when we do, it will not develop haphazardly, but with the aid of all past knowledge we possess, for safeguard and guidance.

SLADE: And when there are fifteen or twenty such communities?

PAUL: They will want an over-all government; a miniature of a federal system, we suppose. A republic, with fully functional representative procedures, checked and safeguarded against every abuse of power. Because in all our study and memories of history, we've found no other type of government that can operate with fairness to majorities and minorities alike and leave men as free as any social animal can ever be free. For that matter, Captain, we sometimes glance ahead to a time when there will be hundreds or thousands of towns: a time when our great-grandchildren of all three races may want to experiment with large cities, elaborate industries. Such things will bring their own heavy difficulties, but we have reason to hope that our great-grandchildren will have the patience and courage to solve them as they arise. Brodaa, tell them about the school.

BRODAA: I am not good in exposition, Paul.... We are--strict, Captain, that the children should learn all the tested factual knowledge we can give them. They must read, speak, write--clearly, precisely, honestly. We do not allow them to leave a method half learned, a task half done. If there is a question, they must search for an answer; if there is no sufficient answer known, they must learn to test the insufficient answers and wait judgment. My own language has flaws--I am an old woman--I still go to school, to Paul, Mashana Dorothy, Dr. Wright, to learn more for my own sake and for the little ones I teach. They must learn the fundamental methods and facts as soon as they can start to think at all. We are never afraid of teaching any child too much or too soon--we respect them. Oh, Mashana, I was wishing you would return.

DOROTHY: Need has arisen for the Dope? What goes on more or less?

ELIS: Education.

PAUL: How is--

SPEARMAN: How is she?

DOROTHY: She is asleep, Ed. Nothing to worry about.

PAKRIAA: She will be healed.

MIJOK: Education on Lucifer. Pakriaa and I have the pleasantest part of the teaching, I think. We show them the ways of the forest and the open ground, the plants and other living things, how to hunt without cruelty or waste, how to be safe and happy alone in the woods at night, when to fear and not to fear. As Samis shows them the care of the tame beasts, and the work in the plantations....

WRIGHT: I'll add a little too, though Brodaa could do it better--

MUKERJI: Come here, kink.

DOROTHY: Why, he loves you! That one won't usually go to anybody but Muson. His wife is due to have kittens and he's blue about it.

MUKERJI: Kittens--kinkens--

DOROTHY: Just kittens. Seven at one whack. Oof--shet ma mouf.

HELEN: Mother, if you looked at seven kittens now they'd be fourteen.

DOROTHY: Such comment, from a lady allowed to sit up late.

Such, I might add, perfectly accurate comment. Sleepy, baby?

HELEN: Not a bit.

DOROTHY: You are too. You snuggle like a kitten half full of milk. Half an hour, huh?

HELEN: Mm.

WRIGHT: We see to it, Captain, that our children are not stuffed with inflated words, equivocal words. When you talk with them, they won't be chattering to you about freedom, democracy, truth, justice. They learn these words closely; we see to it that they learn them with caution. When they use them we say--define, define. Democracy by what means, within what limits, toward what end? Freedom from what, for what? For what's the profit if I rattle on about freedom in a semantic vacuum? I am free to speak, not free to kill and wound; I must be free from slavery to the whims of others. I can never be free from the bonds of a hundred duties, responsibilities, loyalties to persons I love and principles I cherish. Words without definition are sheer noise, and noise never drummed any race into Paradise. Oh, the thing's obvious as a child's building blocks--but I recall how on Earth men tended to forget it twenty-four hours a day, and here on Lucifer we forget it often enough--myself included.

But we do not forget it when we teach our children.... One other thing--before this wine takes me back to second childhood--as soon, Captain, as their minds are old enough--

AREK: Where did Spearman go?

WRIGHT: Oh, he--he just stepped out, I think. Stretch his legs or something. As soon as their minds are old enough to think with some independence and explore, we insist that they start the lifetime struggle with man's primary dilemma--

ELIS: I hoped you would speak of that, my brother.

WRIGHT: That he is an individual, his self-hood precious and inviolate, yet he must live in harmony with other individuals whose right to life and welfare is as certain as his own. Approach the study of society from any direction you will, that problem is at the heart of it, and must be a thousand generations from now, because it must be met anew with every infant born. We think, here, that the most rewarding answer is in the old virtues of self-knowledge, charity, honesty, forbearance, patience. Now, those are all words that demand definition and multiple definition; on that basis we have our children study them, search the depth and height of them, in the not so simple problems of childhood through the tougher ones of adolescence and maturity. We make them understand that lip service will not do: if one is to make himself honest he must eat honesty with breakfast, sweat with it in the sun, laugh and play and suffer with it and lie down with it at night until it's near as the oxygen in his blood. Yes, we aim high. Cruelly high, would you say? We don't think so. Perfection is a cold spot on top of a mountain, and n.o.body ever climbed there. We have trouble and fun and arguments; sometimes the garden weeds grow until tomorrow or the day after, but we sleep well.

DOROTHY: Speaking of perfection and goodness and things and stuff--I know it was Paul who put those violin strings by Nan's bed, but which one of you supplied them?

SLADE: Well, he told me--

DOROTHY: Will it be all right if I reach over this daughter of mine and kiss you?

SLADE: They did brief us, back on Earth, that we must respect local customs--

MIJOK: And perhaps even another drink could do him no harm.

PAKRIAA: He's pied.

ELIS: I would not say that. Speaking as Governor, I say that the local wine industry deserves every encouragement it can get--and has, ever since Samis' favorite kink had kittens in the bottom of the vest bat.

SAMIS: Correction.

MIJOK: Best vat. Speaking as Lieutenant Governor. Just elected--did it myself.

MUSON: The toastmistress has been quiet lately.

NISANA: Who, me?