The Final Planet Read online

  His translator was revealing the sayings in Spacegael, but even in translation it was obvious that they represented different times, different situations, different authors. Some were flat and harsh:

  Have no congress with beasts. Eliminate those who do.

  Every woman is a walking womb.

  Slay them who turn away.

  Others were more paradoxical:

  The woman is for the man. Man is for the woman.

  Food for everyone. Women for everyone.

  Let them who eat too much, starve. Let them that bear too many be made barren.

  Destroy those who would make peace. Make peace with those who would destroy.

  Still others made no sense at all:

  Beware the time of the wind. Beware the word of the prophet. Beware the body of the tempter.

  Let not sex interfere with your manliness.

  Let those who disturb go to Zylong to learn peace.

  Love him who punishes your needs.

  Yet others were reasoned and occasionally moving:

  In our world we must have only those rules which free the natural human propensity to goodness.

  Sex is joy for all who will enjoy it.

  All are equal, men and women, old and young; let there be no distinctions. Treat all life with respect.

  No power should endure, lest it corrupt.

  Reverence all who share this world with us.

  We must be equal to be free and free to be equal. No freedom which threatens equality.

  No equality which threatens freedom.

  There were finally a larger number of sayings that described women, of which the mildest was: “He who kills a male child does a great evil. He who kills a female child prevents a great evil.”

  It was possible, Seamus thought, that if anyone had the stomach for it, he could find the times in the history of the Zylongi settlement—now 1119 Earth-years old—for most of these sayings. The reasonable ones went back to the fervent idealism of the Founder, who believed in natural, human goodness, commonality of property, respect for nature, and complete sexual freedom.

  Reading between the bland and pious lines of official history, Seamus was able to piece together much of the story in rough outline.

  It soon turned out the sexual freedom was for men and not for women and it meant that men had the fun and women did the work. “Sexual freedom = sexual slavery for women after two generations at the most,” Seamus had scrawled on the paper.

  There had been a revolt of women that was mercilessly put down. The Great Lords then took hordi females as wives and built great cities all over the plains. In violent and bitter wars, they destroyed one another, tearing down great settlements and destroying much of the machinery they had brought with them. Then came the time of the “First Reorganization”; sobriety and frugality were imposed by the “Reorganizers,” who pitilessly destroyed all who seemed to have hordi genes in them and began to rebuild the central city where the first settlement had occurred. They extirpated every other town from the world and forbade all but the outcasts and “degenerates” to live in the country.

  Sexual freedom returned. An attempt was made to exterminate all hordi as “evil ones.” There was no explanation of why it had failed.

  There then followed a time called the “Terrible License” in which morals degenerated and, according to the sources from that era—maybe four centuries ago—every vice was practiced, despite the warnings of occasional wise men about the evils of “yielding to the body.” Then came the Second Reorganization about two and a half centuries ago in which a “Guide” and a “Committee of Secretaries” and “Order of Guardians” had been established to maintain “order, discipline, probity.”

  “A very wise plan, the Second Reorganization,” one of the sages had remarked.

  Well, Seamus thought, it seems to have kept them from slaughtering one another for two hundred and fifty years, so it can’t be all bad.

  What’s next? The Second License?

  As much as he was shocked by the stories of torture, massacre, and near genocide, Seamus was impressed by the durability of the original vision and the sincere commitment of the Zylongi, however twisted their methods, to that vision: an orderly world of equality, commonality, and publicly approved virtue. If women and hordi were often attacked, the reason that was given was that they were a threat to virtue. If sex was often denounced, the reason was that it was seen as an obstacle to a sober and rational life of civic responsibility. If personal freedom was constrained, it was in the cause of justice for all.

  So a thousand years of destruction, tyranny, and death. What had been accomplished? Well, for the last quarter of a millennium they had created a successful illusion, which maybe was an impressive accomplishment. Now the illusion was fading, still powerful for Sammy’s generation but not for her son’s or for Margie’s.

  And the illusion was maintained by a terror that at times on Zylong, even in the crisp, quiet library, was palpable. (Here Seamus was certain, though he could not explain yet why or how.)

  Ought that not be enough for the geniuses up on the Iona? Probably not. They’d want details of the terror today. Get with it, Seamus.

  So here he was risking the terror by breaking the local rules and walking along the side of the sanitation system after the “advisory” curfew hour and in a section of town which he had been warned by Sammy was not “suitable” for walking. So what?

  Seamus was never one to take such rules very seriously. Besides, the disturbing presence of his host and hostess had begun to overwhelm him. Their relationship was baffling—especially since they slept in separate rooms, as it would seem did all Zylongi couples. He needed a few peaceful moments in the clear night air to try to make some sense out of this weird world into which he had been set, much against his will and, as he was saying now, against his better judgment too.

  He had been walking through the Old City of Zylong, whose narrow streets followed the paths of the first settlers and whose low buildings commemorated the era before skyscraper apartments. At the end of the street leading to the bridge, he saw the glow of the great Central Plaza. Drinking in the colors and sounds, he had ambled across the plaza, filled with elegant, brightly dressed bodies, walking, talking, sitting at tables, listening to strolling musicians. Their voices were soft, their manners discreet, their greetings to him elaborately civilized. His host and hostess saw no problem with his “taking a bit of air,” though they only dimly knew what he meant.

  Zylong City at ten-thirty at night was a pulsating, shining, glowing place. Seamus drank in its charms—which included most notably the greatest collection of shapely female forms he had ever seen. It was a great place, it was … with the most lovely women in the cosmos, though none—his question was now answered—as lovely as the fair Marjetta, whom he had alas not set eyes on since the fruit-nibbling preprandials.

  If only they weren’t spying on me …

  Then the lights flickered, warning the folks to go home. Without reluctance or protest the crowds slipped away and left the center of the City deserted in less than a quarter hour. Then the lights went out, leaving Seamus alone, or so it seemed, in the total darkness, broken only by the frail light of one of several tiny and unimpressive moons.

  Alone except for the spies.

  He frowned at the black waters of the stream. It looked pretty deep. Of course they weren’t telling him the truth. Or rather they were telling him so much which was true that he was not really getting the truth, not even the truth of why they were so eager to give him a crash course on Zylongian life. Somewhere something was very wrong.

  Again, the twitch in his neck. Damn it, still no one there. “Come out in the open and fight,” he said in Spacegael. There was no one willing to respond. Back again to the flowing waters. Deep and rapid, doubtless some kind of sewer.

  I’d sure hate to get pushed in.

  In the morning everything had been straightforward. Technical Institute, Computer Institute, Bo
dy Institute—he got the full official tour of each one. He saw the great Central Plaza with the sprawling complex of Central Building, computer center and military headquarters. He walked some of the curving little streets of the Old City behind the plaza. His questions about politics were answered in great detail: they were governed by an elaborate structure of Committees that made all the decisions at every level in the society—unanimously, he was assured.

  He had to ask very few questions. Most of his queries were anticipated. Someone had sent the word to tell him everything—so much of everything that he would be drowned by detail. If you keep pointing out the technical name of each tree, you don’t give anyone time to focus on the forest. He had heard everything and learned virtually nothing.

  At the sternly antiseptic Body Institute with its pastel green walls, O’Neill was surprised at the relationship between Samaritha and her staff. He expected the Director of Research to be stiff with her juniors, but she actually unbent and relaxed. Her gang seemed to like her; their banter was mild compared to what went on aboard the Iona, but in this uptight place it was almost disrespectful. She actually smiled once or twice, even managing something which by Zylongian standards must be considered a laugh. When she laughed, the urge to hug and kiss her was strong again. He had to watch himself.

  The Zylongi, he learned from the doctor and her staff, lived in close harmony with their environment. At the time of the Reorganization, it had been determined that population expansion was to cease and that the rest of the continent would be left to its natural inhabitants. Jarndt, their main crop, was the source of their food and clothing. Rock and metal ore quarried beyond the City provided them with materials for their buildings. Research was required merely to develop new and drought-resistant forms of jarndt and new techniques for exploiting its bounty and, in Samaritha’s case, for the better understanding of the inhabitants with whom they shared the planet.

  All reasonable enough, he supposed, until they got to the genetic engineering part of the story. Young people were mated in infancy after a computer examination of their genetic potential. Random mating, he was told, was undisciplined and socially dangerous. The Body Institute staff were astonished that O’Neill was pledged to no one and that if he wished to marry, he could choose anyone he wished.

  After the Body Institute, Samaritha walked with him to the Music Center, where he was to listen to her husband conduct a rehearsal. He sensed disapproval and anxiety in her tense, voluptuous little body. “You truly have no pledge to a woman, Poet O’Neill?” she asked dubiously, a frown on her face. “Does that not lead to promiscuity?”

  “Well, I usually manage to keep my animal instincts under control, though it’s hard when I’m walking with beautiful women.…”

  Her frown deepened. “You must try to understand our culture and not to dislike it,” she said primly, ignoring the compliment.

  She said a formal good-bye to him at the entrance to the Music Center and turned to walk back down the street. Seamus enjoyed the sight of her swaying buttocks as she melted in with the crowd. Lord save you, man, she’s twenty years older than you. He still watched until she was lost from sight.

  He thought of her swaying body again as he watched the sewer water glide swiftly by him. The Central Plaza was as dark, according to the Taran saying, as a Cardinal’s heart. He should hurry back to the living space. They might worry. Sammy and Ernie were merely doing their duty of hospitality. They had been told by the Committee to provide him with answers to all his questions. They may have suspected something else was happening, but they were either afraid to know or too wise to ask.

  Did they know about the shadows that had been on him all day? Probably not. For Sammy it was essential that he not only know the answers to questions he really had not got around to asking but also that he accept the wisdom of Zylong’s cultural decisions. Did that mean she had her own doubts?

  This time he was sure he heard sounds in the street. Still no one there. Sammy was a true believer, though; her husband apparently less so.

  “My mate is a virtuous woman,” Music Director Ornigon had said that day. “She is not able merely to explain and accept, she must also defend. For an Honored Guest, that can be tiresome.” Again there was a deep tinge of melancholy in this gifted man’s voice.

  O’Neill observed that such a splendid woman could never become tiresome.

  Ornigon continued. “The Honored Research Director has been very popular since her youth and very enthusiastic. Such traits are admirable in a scientist, I think. As an artist, I may be excused, perhaps, for being more cynical.” He shrugged his shoulders ruefully.

  It was after the rehearsal, a mechanical Haydn played with instruments that looked like caricatures of the symphony instruments he knew. The horns, violins, even the wind instruments were almost half again as long as they were in the prototypical Taran orchestra. There were also a couple of super bassoon-type things that made a deep and haunting sound.

  O’Neill and his host stood on Reorganization Bridge watching the fading sun color the big stream scarlet as it rushed through the City toward its confluence with the great River in the midst of the vast sandy banks beyond the walls.

  They sipped companionably from a container of la-ir that Ornigon had managed to find in a back room of the concert arena.

  “Is it true that mates are chosen here by a computer?” O’Neill asked, leaning casually against the bridge.

  “Oh yes, it is true. I know of no evidence that it has notably improved our species, save perhaps in some physical ways. I do know that it produces certain divisions in our society. Mates are chosen according to principles which lead people to mate within their own groups. Thus the Honored Doctor and I are both from families of important people in the country. Our son’s mate, the Military Student, is the daughter of important officials. The goal of a society without classes seems to be in conflict with the goals of a genetically improved society.” He spoke gently, but the empty paper container crumpled in his hand.

  “But how does someone like Dr. Samaritha explain that conflict?” O’Neill drained his paper cup and filled it again.

  “She says that our society exists in its essence during the planting and harvesting of the crops—which reflect our origins, after all. The Festivals that come after are times when we return to primitive equality. Whether that satisfies those who think we have rigid social division and that they are the victims of it, I am not wise or informed enough to say. The Committees have thought so; one hears very little complaint. Of course, those of us at the top would not complain, would we?” He shook his head negatively to Seamus’s offer of more drink, noticing with surprise what he had done to his cup.

  “Social divisions?” O’Neill asked, not bothering to hide his curiosity.

  “A small matter.” His host regretted his quiet outburst almost at once. “It is rarely discussed.”

  O’Neill emptied the container into his own cup and glanced at the glorious skyline. Heaven save us, it is beautiful. Not worth the price that’s paid for it, but still beautiful. A pastel symphony against the serene blue sky, much softer and more flexible than the concert piece he had heard.

  Who was in charge here? What shadowy forces if any made the real decisions? On the Iona, you knew what the factions and the parties were and who dominated the Captain Abbess’s council this year and who had the ear of the Abbess and the Prior and the Subprior and whom to see when you wanted something done. But here it was impersonal, mysterious, secret. “Committees,” “Guides,” “computers”? Nonsense. Someone had to be in power.

  Didn’t they? Or could a cultivated civilization become so rigid and so old that no one was in charge? At least a third of the recycling units did not seem to work and two of the streams were bone-dry, their artificial stone beds harshly stained in the sunlight. They would be repaired “shortly,” he was told. But the word sounded more like an approved cliché than a confident assertion that the repairmen were on the way. One of the two lift
s in the Ernie/Sammy skyscraper would also be fixed “shortly”; but when he demanded how long it had not worked Seamus learned that (a) he should not ask such questions and (b) for several months.

  “The Repair Committee is very busy. There is much to be done. It assigns the proper priorities. We who do not understand must wait patiently. It serves no purpose to complain.”

  Which O’Neill interpreted as meaning that the efficient Samaritha wanted to complain and repressed her urges, even to herself.

  In a society with the wealth and resources this one possessed, there was no reason for anything breaking down for a long period of time. Save for bureaucratic incompetencies, about which Seamus had read, but which, heaven knows, he had never experienced in the small contentious world of the monastery. If the repair crews didn’t show up in fifteen minutes, you sought out the responsible person and posed numerous questions about his ancestry, his sexual preferences, and the advisability of propelling him instantly through the space lock into permanent individual orbit. He responded in kind but then came with his surly crew and did the job; after which, a bit of the drink was always happily taken. No waiting for months.

  “Does the computer decide when you can have children too?”

  “Pregnancies are authorized by the Pregnancy Committee,” Ornigon responded slowly. “Only after careful tests do they approve it. The most any family is permitted is three pregnancies; the normal is two; many have only one. Sometimes none are authorized. In addition there is a test the infant must pass to qualify for life. Should he fail, he is disposed of. It is very difficult to get permission for a replacement pregnancy.” Ornigon paused. “We had a second child … a daughter … she had a slight defect.…” Brusquely he added, “It was a pity, but there is a social cost in such defects that a society like ours simply cannot afford. The child would not have been happy in any case.”

  “Is this same thing done to old people?” O’Neill inquired, beginning to suspect why he had seen so few.