Broohnin looked up at the stars. Whether he wanted to or not, it appeared he would be going to Earth with LaNague. There was no other choice left to him, no other way to hold on to the tattered remnants of “the Broohnin circle.” He would use LaNague to pull everyone back together, and then take up again where he had left off. Once he got a feel for LaNague he was sure he could find ways to maneuver him into a useful position.
Off to Earth…and why not? Who could pass up a free trip like that anyway? Few out-worlders ever got there. And right now he was curious enough about what was going on in that Tolivian head to go just about anywhere to find out.
CHAPTER SIX
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight.
Nor public men nor cheering crowds.
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult…
William Butler Yeats
Vincen Stafford hung lazily suspended alongside the Lucky Teela with only a slim cord restraining him from eternity. As Second Assistant Navigator, the fascinating but unenviable duty of checking out all the control module's external navigation equipment fell to him. The job required a certain amount of working familiarity with the devices, more than the regular maintenance crew possessed. Only someone in the Navigator Guild would do. And since Stafford had the least seniority imaginable—this was his first assignment from the guild—he was elected.
Although finished with the checklist, he made no move to return to the lock where he could remove his gear and regain his weight. Instead he floated free and motionless, his eyes fixed on the ring of cargo pods encircling the control module…a gently curving necklace of random, oddly shaped stones connected by an invisible thread, reflecting distant fire.
The out-world-to-Earth grain run was ready to move. The area here at the critical point in the gravity well of Throne's star was used as a depot for Earth-bound exports from many of the agricultural worlds. The cargo pods were dropped off and linked to each other by intersecting hemispheres of force. When the daisy chain was long enough to assure sufficient profit from the run, the control module and its crew were linked up and all was set to go.
This run would not be completely typical, however. There were two passengers bound for Earth aboard. Unusual. Few if any out-worlders outside the diplomatic service had contact with Earth. The diplomats traveled in official cruisers, all others traveled any way they could. The two passengers within had to be wealthy—passage to Earth, even on a grain run, was not booked cheaply. They didn't look rich, those two…one dark of clothing, beard, and mood, the other blond and intense and clutching a small potted tree under his arm. An odd pair. Stafford wondered—
He realized he was wasting time. This was his maiden voyage in a navigational capacity and he had to be in top form. It had taken a long time for the guild to find him this post. After spending the required six standard years in intense encephaloaugmented study until he had become facile in every aspect of interstellar flight—from cosmology to subspace physics, from the intricacies of the proton-proton drive to the fail-safe aspects of the command module's thermostat—he was ready for the interstellar void. Unfortunately the void was not ready for him. The runs were not as frequent as they used to be and he had spent an unconscionably long time at the head of the list of applicants waiting for an assignment.
Vincen Stafford did not ask much of life. All he wanted was a chance to get in between the stars and earn enough to support himself and his wife. Perhaps to put away enough to eventually afford a home of their own and a family. No dreams of riches, no pot of gold.
When he had almost despaired of ever being assigned, word had come; he was now officially a spacer. His career had begun. He laughed inside the helmet as his cord reeled him toward the Teela's lock. Life was good. He had never realized how good it could be.
“WHY THE BUSH? You carry it around like you're related to it.”
“It's not a bush,” LaNague said. “It's a tree. And one of my best friends.”
If the remark was meant to be amusing, Broohnin did not find it so. He was edgy, fidgety, feeling mean. The Lucky Teela had dropped in and out of subspace three times in its course toward Earth, accompanied by the curious, much-investigated but little-explained wrenching nausea each time.
LaNague did not seem to mind, at least outwardly, but for Broohnin, who had not set foot on an interstellar ship since fleeing Nolevatol, each drop was an unnerving physical trial, causing the sweat to pour off him as his intestines tried to reach the outside world through both available routes simultaneously. In fact, the entire trip was a trial for Broohnin. It reminded him of that farmhouse on Nolevatol where he grew up, a tiny island of wood in the middle of a sea of grain, no one around but his mother, his brother, and that idiot who pretended to be a father. He had often felt like this on the farm…trapped, confined, with nothing outside the walls. He found himself wandering the corridors of the control ship incessantly, his palms continually moist, his fingers twitching endlessly as if possessed of a life of their own. At times the walls seemed to be closing in on him, threatening to crush him to currant jelly.
When his mental state reached that stage—when he could swear that if he looked quickly, without warning, to his right or left he could actually catch a trace of movement at the edges of the walls, always toward him, never away—he popped a couple of Torportal tablets under his tongue, closed his eyes, and waited. They dissolved rapidly, absorbed through the sublingual mucosa and into the venous circulation almost immediately. A few good pumps of his heart and the active metabolite was in his brain and at work on the limbic system, easing the tension, pushing back the walls, allowing him to sit still and actually carry on a coherent conversation…as he was doing now.
He wondered how LaNague could sit so calmly across the narrow expanse of the tight little cabin. Space was precious on these freight runs: the chairs on which they sat, the table on which LaNague's tree stood, all had sprung from the floor at the touch of an activator plate; the bed folded down from the wall when needed; all identical to Broohnin's quarters across the hall. A common-use toilet and washroom were located down the corridor. Everything was planned for maximal usage of available space, which meant that everything was cramped to a maddening degree. Yet LaNague seemed unperturbed, a fact which would have infuriated Broohnin to violence were he not presently in a drugged state. He wondered if LaNague used any psychotropics.
“That's Pierrot,” LaNague was saying, indicating the tree which stood almost within Broohnin's reach on the table afterward and between them. “He started as a misho many years ago and is now a stunted version of the Tolivian equivalent of the flowering mimosa. He shows he's comfortable and at ease now by assuming the bankan position.”
“You talk like it's a member of the family or something.”
“Well…” LaNague paused and a hint of a mischievous smile twisted his lips upward. “You might say he is a member of my family: my great-grandfather.”
Not sure of just how he should take that, Broohnin glanced from LaNague to the tree. In its rich brown, intricately carved fukuro-shiki-bachi earthenware container, it stood no taller than the distance from the tip of a man's middle finger to the tip of his elbow. The foliage consisted of narrow, five-fingered fronds, spread wide and lined with tiny leaves, all displayed in a soft umbrella of green over its container. The trunk was gently curved to give an over-all picture of peace and serenity.
A thought occurred to Broohnin, a particularly nasty one that he found himself relishing more and more as it lingered in his mind. He knew he was physically superior to LaNague, and knew there were no Flinters aboard. There was no further reason to fear the Tolivian.
“What would you do if I uprooted your precious little tree and broke it into a pile of splinters?”
LaNague started half out of his chair, his face white. When he saw that Broohnin had not yet made an actual move toward Pierrot, he resumed his seat.
“I would mourn,” he said in a voice that was dry and vibrated
with—what? Was it fear or rage? Broohnin couldn't tell. “I might even weep. I would burn the remains, and then…I don't know. I'd want to kill you, but I don't know if I would do it.”
“You won't allow Metep to be killed, but you'd kill me because of a stinking little tree?” Broohnin wanted to laugh in the other man's face, but the coldness in LaNague's voice gave him pause. “You could get another.”
“No. I couldn't. There is only one Pierrot.”
Broohnin glanced over to the tree and was startled by the change in its appearance. The finger-like fronds had pulled close together and the trunk was now laser-beam straight.
“You've startled Pierrot into the chokkan configuration,” LaNague said reproachfully.
“Perhaps I'll break you into splinters,” Broohnin replied, turning away from the disturbing little tree that changed shape as mood dictated, and focusing again on LaNague. “You've no Flinters to do your dirty work now…I could do it easily…break your back…I'd enjoy that.”
He was not saying this merely to frighten LaNague. It would feel good to hurt him, damage him, kill him. There were times when Broohnin felt he must destroy something, anything. Pressure built up inside him and fought madly for release. Back on Throne, he would wander through the dimmest areas of the dolee zones when the pressure reached unbearable levels, and woe to the poor Zemmelar addict who tried to assault him for the few marks he had. The ensuing scuffle would be brief, vicious, and unreported. And Broohnin would feel better afterward. Only the Torportal in his system now kept him from leaping at LaNague.
“Yes, I believe you would,” LaNague said, totally at ease. “But it might be a good idea to wait until the return trip. We're on our way to Sol System, don't forget. You'd be taken into custody here and turned over to the Crime Authority once we reached the disengagement point. And the Crime Authority of Earth is very big on psycho-rehabilitation.”
The inner rage abruptly dissolved within Broohnin, replaced by shuddering cold. Psycho-rehab started with a mindwipe and ended with a reconstructed personality.
“Then I'll wait,” he said, hoping the remark did not sound as lame as he felt. There followed a protracted, uncomfortable pause—un-comfortable, it seemed, only for Broohnin.
“What's our first step once we get to Earth?” he asked, forcing himself to break the silence. The whole idea of a trip to Earth to lay groundwork for a revolution in the out-worlds bothered him. Bothered him very much.
“We'll take a quick trip to the southern pole to confirm personally a few reports I've had from contacts on Earth. If those prove true—and I'll have to see with my own eyes before I believe—then I'll arrange a meeting with the third richest man in Sol System.”
“Who's that?”
“You'll find out when we meet him.”
“I want to know now!” Broohnin shouted and sprang from his chair. He wanted to pace the floor but there was no room for more than two steps in any direction. “Every time I ask a question you put me off! Am I to be a part of this or not?”
“In time you will be privy to everything. But you must proceed in stages. A certain basic education must be acquired before you can fully understand and effectively participate in the workings of my plan.”
“I'm as educated as I need to be!”
“Are you? What do you know about out-world-Sol System trade?”
“Enough. I know the out-worlds are the bread basket for Sol System. It's grain runs like the one we're on right now that keep Earth from starving.”
“Kept Earth from starving,” LaNague said. “The need for an extraterrestrial protein source is rapidly diminishing. She'll soon be able to feed her own and these grain runs will become a thing of the past before too long. The out-worlds will no longer be Earth's bread basket.”
Broohnin shrugged. “So? That'll just leave more for the rest of us to eat.”
LaNague's laugh was irritating in its condescension. “You've a lot to Learn…a lot to learn.” He leaned forward in his chair, his long-fingered hands slicing the air before him as he spoke. “Look at it this way: think of a country or a planet or a system of planets as a factory. The people within work to produce something to sell to other people outside the factory. Their market is in constant flux. They find new customers, lose old ones, and generally keep production and profits on an even keel. But every once in a while a factory makes the mistake of selling too much of its production to one customer. It's convenient, yes, and certainly profitable. But after a while it comes to depend on that customer too much. And should that customer find a better deal elsewhere, what do you think happens to the factory?”
“Trouble.”
“Trouble,” LaNague said, nodding. “Big trouble. Perhaps even bankruptcy. That's what's happening to the out-worlds. You—I exclude Tolive and Flint because neither of those two planets joined the out-world trade network when Earth was in command, preferring to become self-supporting and thus sparing ourselves dependency on Sol-System trade—you members of the Out-world Imperium are a large factory with one product and one customer. And that customer is learning how to live without you. Before too long you'll all be up to your ears in grain which everyone is growing but no one will be buying. You won't be able to eat it fast enough.”
“Just how long is ‘before too long’?”
“Eighteen to twenty standard years.”
“I think you're wrong,” Broohnin said. Although he found the idea of a chaotic economic collapse strangely appealing, he could not buy it. “Sol System has always depended on the out-worlds for food. They can't produce enough of their own, so where else can they get it?”
“They've developed a new protein source…and they're not feeding as many,” LaNague said, leaning back in his chair now.
The pollution in the seas of Earth had long ago excluded them from ever being a source of food. What could be grown on land and in the multilevel warehouse farms was what humanity would eat. Yet as the population curve had continued on its ever-steepening upward climb, slowing briefly now and then, but moving ever upward, available land space for agriculture shrank. As the number of hungry mouths increased and took up more and more living space, Earth's Bureau of Farms was strained to its utmost to squeeze greater and greater yields out of fewer and fewer acres. The orbiting oneils helped somewhat, but the crush of people and the weight of their hunger surpassed all projections. Synthetic foods that could be processed in abundance were violently rejected; palatable staples could not be supplied in sufficient quantities.
And so the out-world trade network was formed. The colonies were recruited and made over into huge farms. Since a whole ring of grain pods could be dropped in and out of subspace almost as cheaply as one, the out-world-Sol System grain runs were begun and it appeared that a satisfactory solution had at last been found.
For a while, it worked. Came the out-world revolution and everything changed. Sol System still received grain from the out-worlds, but at a fair market price. Too broke to start settling and developing new farm colonies, Earth turned inward and began setting its own house in order.
First step was genetic registry. Anyone discovered to have a defective, or even potentially defective, genotype—this included myriad recessive traits—was sterilized. Howls and threats of domestic revolution arose, but the Earth government was not to be moved this time. It gave the newly formed Bureau of Population Control police powers and expected it to use them.
An example was made of Arna Miffler: a woman with a genotype previously declared free of dangerous traits. She was young, childless, single, and idealistic. She began a campaign of protest against the BPC and its policies, a successful one in its early stages, one that was quickly gathering momentum. At that time, the BPC re-examined Arna Miffler's genotype and discovered a definite trait for one of the rare mucopolysaccharide disorders. She was arrested at her home one night and led off to a BPC clinic. When released the next morning, she was sterile.
Lawyers, geneticists, activists who came to her aid soo
n learned that their own genotypes, and those of their families, were undergoing scrutiny. As some of Arna's supporters here and there were dragged off to BPC clinics and sterilized, the protest movement faltered, then stalled, then died. It was quite clear that the Bureau of Population Control had muscle and was not afraid to use it. Resistance was reduced to a whisper.
It rose to a scream again when the next step was announced: reproduction was to be limited to the status quo. Two people were only allowed to engender two more new people. A male was allowed to father two children and no more; a female was allowed to deliver or supply ova for two children and no more. After the live birth of the second child, each was to report for voluntary sterilization.
The option for sterilization after fathering or mothering a second child was about as voluntary as Earth's voluntary tax system: comply or else. The genotype of every newborn was entered into a computer which cross-analyzed each parent's genetic contribution. Once the analysis indicated the existence of a second child derived from a certain genotype, that individual's number was registered and he or she was immediately located and escorted to the nearest BPC clinic, where a single injection eliminated forever the possibility of producing another viable gamete.
The BPC looked on this approach as a masterful compromise. Each citizen was still allowed to replace himself or herself via a child, something many—too many—considered an inalienable right. But no more than self-replacement was permitted. Fathering or mothering a child was a capital offense, the male or the female parent being chosen for death by lot in order to “make room” for the newborn child.
The population thus decreased by attrition. Death from disease, although rare, still whittled away at the numbers. Accidental deaths did the same at a faster rate. Children who died after birth—even if they were only seconds old—could not be replaced. The one-person/one-child rule was adhered to dogmatically. Special tax incentives were offered to those who would submit to sterilization before giving rise to new life, higher taxes levied on those who insisted on reproduction.
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