The Chromosome Game

by Hodder-Williams, Christopher

  ‘— a … ?’

  ‘Oh, dear. The rock underneath the water must have been split at some time, kinda sorta lika earthquake.’

  ‘These are contours?’

  ‘Excellent, Scorda. Teacher is pleased.’

  ‘Well, if you’ve got your contours right, then this means that the river runs in a deep cutting —’

  ‘— which cannot be seen, my dear fellow, from the plains.’

  ‘Won’t people go up that far fishing?’

  ‘Well, the difficulty is, there aren’t any fish.’

  ‘Sladey, I heard Krand say that as soon as he’s got one of them horses trained —’

  ‘— those horses —’

  ‘— any horses, Sladey, he’s going to ride right up to the Alps, so he might see us, don’t you think?’

  ‘We must be careful little boat-people, Scorda.’

  ‘More than careful — I heard there’d be two of them riding.’

  ‘Who’s the other?’

  ‘Helen-043.’

  ‘Well, well! That rules out Krand as a potential beneficiary regarding anything we can manage by way of caviare —’

  ‘— Maybe Krand just wants a fling with a nigger-girl for the kicks, I mean like it’s a temporary hang-up —’

  ‘Scorda, whether it’s temp-or-ar-y or not, or whether he thinks she’s an aeroplane, Krand is out.’

  ‘But he’s —’

  ‘He’s what, Scorda? — a nice, big, strong greek god?’

  ‘I don’t see what you’re getting at.’

  ‘Good. Now, this map-reference. You sure you got the location exactly right?

  ‘I copied it direct from the log.’

  ‘And did Scordaboy think to remove the requisite page?’

  ‘I didn’t like to risk tearing it out.’

  ‘Well, you don’t tear it out, Scorda. You undo the binding and very carefully you remove both that page and the opposite page in the section.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? — Because if we pinch an engine, and the heavenly couple get wise to it, they might suddenly ask each other: Why no engine? And they might think, good gracious me, there might be hidden supplies someplace, and, odds bodkins, the clue might be in the ship’s log. At the first opportunity, Scorda, I shall visit that unseemly garbage disposal unit and r-r-remove the evidence. And that opportunity is right now.’

  ‘Sure … Could you move your hand a bit, Sladey?’

  ‘My hand? … Christ, aren’t we anxious!’

  ‘I said, move it, Sladey.’

  ‘Where would you like me to put it?’

  ‘Just keep it to yourself.’

  ‘Scorda, we must find you a psycho-analyst among those busybody auto-nurses. Have you never seen astronauts at the pictures, caressing each other with such tantalising devotion?’

  ‘Well, you ain’t no astronaut.’

  ‘Very true. However, not to worry, really you mustn’t, because people might get to think you’re neurotic, and that would never do. I just thought we were pals: and you know what? — We are, Scorda. We are.’

  ‘Just don’t prove it so much.’

  *

  Kelda whispered, ‘So you’re part Jew. And what is a Jew?’

  ‘Some kind of a recessive gene. They were developing a master race. Something went wrong and they got me.’

  ‘Wrong? If you’re what’s wrong, who is what’s right?’

  ‘Anyone pure Aryan.’

  Her voice hardened. ‘Sladey. Is he pure Aryan?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too prejudiced on his account. Sladey is Sladey — Jew or Gentile.’

  ‘Sladey-555? — the Master Race? Oh, boy!’

  ‘Shhh.’

  ‘I won’t shhh.’

  ‘Look, were talking about racial categories. Up at the meeting we described Eagle as being of Red Indian descent; Milem and Helen and people: black. See?’

  ‘No, I don’t see! Compare Sladey with Nembrak the Inventor. Am I supposed to accept they have anything in common?’

  ‘They’re both Aryan. Look, let’s quit this —’

  ‘— I’m not gonna quit! Mendra has dark skin. Is she —’

  ‘She’s considered okay because she comes from Provence and tans easy.’

  ‘It must be a hairline decision. I have green eyes. Do pure Aryans have green eyes?’

  ‘Optional. Angels have them, too.’

  ‘Shut up! I’m serious. I never heard anything so crazy … You’re so damn pretty, Trell! And you and me, we’re just people. The way you’re talking makes us sound like different species.’

  ‘There’s certainly a difference between us!’

  ‘If you don’t take this seriously I’ll —’

  ‘How can anyone take it seriously? It’s irrational.’

  ‘Then I don’t see the problem.’

  ‘The problem, Kelda, is history. And I don’t know history — except that it all stopped with one hell of a bang.’

  And no wonder, if in order to have problems they had to invent them.’

  ‘Yeah, and in such an inventive age, why invent problems? — Let’s face it, Kelda, the whole Kasiga bit is quite brilliant. Consider the detail, the thought that went into it … Everything you could imagine and more — from the vast concept itself down to trimmings … like the way you get a Special —’

  ‘— You can’t now. It’s empty —’

  ‘Yeah, but the ideas, the sheer creativeness. The same people who devised gigantic bombs thought of the way to preserve semen and ova; how to preserve food for a period of three hundred years, and so on. They think of providing a squashcourt; they provide an indexed system of holograms so that we can view … Wait a minute! Krand raised a problem with the holograms —’

  ‘— I know the problem, Trell. It’s out of line. Statues don’t reach all the way down to the ground.’

  ‘How long has it been like that?’

  ‘For weeks, I’d say. Sometimes it’s okay … the next day the images are raised. Does it matter? You can still see the pretty pictures in 3-D … Where are you going?’

  ‘To take a look at it So are you.

  ‘What — now?’

  ‘Sure … Let’s go watch Nastasi losing his cool mid-air.’

  ‘You’re nuts.’

  ‘I know. Coming?

  ‘… Okay, Trell. Let’s push some buttons. Who would you like? — Sir Georg Solti levitating over the Chicago Symphony? — the Bolshoi dancing without having to plant their ballet-shoes on the stage?

  ‘Can you just put up a Doric column?’

  ‘Kind of dull, isn’t it?’

  ‘I dunno. Let’s see it … Right. Sure as hell, it’s a foot off the ground.’

  ‘Clever architects, Trell. In those days structural engineering was not subject to the laws of gravity …’

  ‘— And yet there is insufficient room for adjustment on this thing to bring that pillar down to earth. Now, why?’

  ‘Take a look underneath the projection array.’

  ‘Okay … I hope I can put this darn thing together again … Now, wait — a — minute!’

  Without a word, Trell yanked out the cause of the problem.

  Kelda saw at a glance what it meant. She breathed, ‘Let’s go up top — to F Deck. Straight away! See if it fits over that patch on the floor!’

  ‘I know for damn certain it will.’

  ‘Let’s check.’

  ‘Okay. Are you warm enough in that rig?’

  ‘Boiling … I’ll go to the music room and work the organ pedal.’

  ‘It may not be in circuit, Kelda.’

  ‘No one bothers to switch it off, these days. The orifice gag is an open secret. I’ll go and make music. And this time we go straight to the top of the Charts.’

  *

  You could hear a biting gale outside. It generated vortices within the cavities of the ship itself now, for Kasiga had been opened up both where the incubants had first made their exit and where the top of the ho
ist-shaft gaped into the night.

  The stench of fungus and filth had largely been blown out of the hull. But it was intensely cold. Kelda was shivering by the time they reached F Deck. The Laundry Chute drained your body-heat like mountain granite.

  But nothing would have made them turn back. For in Trell’s hands was clutched their prize.

  It was a blockbuster edition of Webster’s Dictionary.

  Trell thought, how different would things have been if that book had never been found? Could mere words dynamite a group of kids into a crazed mob? How could language be that important? Was the impact of letterpress as deadly as the missile?

  Kelda said, ‘It fits.’

  Trell said, ‘Quad Erat Demonstrandum.’

  *

  ‘Look, Trell! All these words heavily underscored in red!’

  ‘And these in green! — Numbers against them.’

  ‘Yes … Trell, I have it! Look, the green numbers have a zero in front of them; the red numbers do not.’

  ‘Right! Opposites! A green number preceded by a zero is the opposite of a word with a red number without the zero. Let’s check … Here we are: “056: Poison”.’

  Kelda tore through the volume to a page near the beginning. ‘Found it! — “56: Antidote”. And they’ve worked right the way through it. Masses and masses of cross-references … No wonder the holograms were normal half the time and not the other —’

  ‘— They kept taking the dictionary out and putting it back again … Look at this, Kelda: “Thermonuclear bomb: bomb or missile with an explosive power measured in megatons”.’

  ‘ “Hanged: Put to death by being hung with a rope around the neck”.’

  ‘Here’s one that’s numbered and underlined in rather a shaky hand, Kelda … “Torture: Act or fact of inflicting very severe pain” — They found out about that one the hard way.’

  ‘Yes … A lot of these words, Trell, are in common use around here by now, they’ve been kind of passed around —’

  ‘— like red-hot coals.’

  ‘Sure … “Victimise: Make a victim of, cause to suffer”.’

  ‘Here’s one that is evidently a favourite … heavily underlined, then put in a circle —’

  ‘— Which one?’

  ‘ “Revenge: Harm done in return for a wrong; vengeance; returning evil for evil” … What lovely minds! Kelda, you realise we could never have run the program we once planned? — I’ve never wanted to harm you, nor you me. The words would have meant nothing.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean we’re angels, Trell.’

  ‘It means you are.

  ‘That’s only how I seem to you, Trell, I must have all those instincts, nearly every one in the book, but I’ve never needed to use them.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got more aggressiveness than you have, Kelda.’

  ‘Okay, you can be a brute but it’s all in fun.’

  ‘But why don’t I want to harm you? According to this dictionary, I should. Otherwise what’s the point of the words?’

  ‘I guess they had too many of them, Trell. The word “love” got kind of buried.’

  ‘Well, Kelda, I got tons and tons of it for you.’

  ‘You can’t mix avoir-du-poids with metric.’

  ‘I can. Right now I can.’

  ‘Right now you can’t! — Look at those log books, Trell!’

  ‘I’m not in the mood for log books.’

  ‘You will be when I tell you that they’re mixed up again — all in the wrong order!’

  ‘They can’t be! Krand told me — only tonight! — that he put them back in sequence.’

  ‘Take a look.’

  ‘So that means —’

  ‘What time during the night did Krand straighten them out?’

  ‘Not more than a couple of hours ago!’

  ‘So that means they’ve just been up here. Must have seen you leave the ship.’

  ‘Krand and I … We were going to move these out.’

  ‘I guess you missed the bus.’

  ‘I guess we did … Look at this Kelda! This is the one they were interested in. See? Fresh thumb-marks. And look! That must have the map references in it. Coordinates!’

  ‘Did Krand mention that too? — while you were out there?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll explain in a few minutes, we had a long talk. Let’s look up those coordinates — fast! Grab the context. Know what it means! Because, sure as hell, they will, by now. Kelda, you found it the first time. Can you do it again, quickly? Or do we have to go through —’

  ‘— No, I know where it is. It comes after.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Well it came after —’

  ‘— You mean it’s not there?’

  ‘Trell, there’s a page missing! They’ve taken the page out! It’s not there!’

  ‘Some night this is.’

  *

  But to the same extent to which there was love between these two there was dissent and hate and mistrust between the splinter groups of incubants.

  These groups were neither consistent nor stable. The weak changed sides; the confused vascillated; the diffident were hesitant to commit themselves to anyone.

  And yet, torn by conflict as they were, the incubants were learning how to manage.

  Under the unobtrusive guidance of Trell and Kelda they licked problem after problem, building their Futureworld despite impoverished soil, unfavourable weather, primitive tools. Always the Decision Group — Trell, Kelda, Krand, Eagle, Nembrak, Cass — these individuals, together with their key helpers, advised, admonished, inspired, calmed, cherished and chastened …

  ‘… How’s the factory coming on, Nembrak? You want any more hands to help you, in there?’

  ‘I have the best team there is, Trell. Up to schedule — on the nose.’

  ‘Terrific …’

  Eagle on horseback. He couldn’t hide the smile from Kelda.

  She asked, ‘How are the zebras? Any sign of the stripes yet?’

  Eagle patted his mount. ‘No, they’re still pretending.’

  ‘Krand says he falls off more than you do.’

  ‘Krand still thinks they’re aeroplanes. Can’t make up his mind whether you want a flying circus or a rodeo.’ He reined the ‘zebra’ in as the stallion started to sidestep. ‘Kelda, you know as well as I do, Krand is a terrific rider.’

  ‘So who’s going to win the Kentucky Derby?’

  ‘Never heard of it. Me and the horse are for Ascot.’

  ‘I’ll buy a new hat …’

  ‘… Milem?’

  ‘Trell, since when did mankind think of ploughing-up reinforced concrete? Can’t Nembrak manufacture a coupla road drills? This isn’t a field, it’s a freeway.’

  ‘You’re still exceeding the speed limit, though.’

  ‘Yeah, but it plays hell with the tyres.

  And it began to be a settlement. Punctuated by occasional games of Red Indians, the work proceeded well. They learned as they went, making mistakes and paying for them, then learning again the hard way; testing themselves out against the challenges of nature — night-frosts getting harder every week, until the soil itself was topped with black ice; high winds that rose without warning and ripped great gashes in the plastic hot-houses … repairs, repairs … re-sitting, time lost; horses, still on occasion with the bit between their teeth, bored and irritated at the idea of hauling the crude harrows and rakes manufactured in the forge within the Nissen hut commonly known as ‘General Motors’ — the fit-up factory run by a ‘Board’ consisting of the Inseparable Four — Nembrak and Fulda, Triumph and Nicola. The Four had by this time discovered the angle on sex they’d missed all the time; If they were inseparable out of bed, why not in it? They tried it and discovered their own patent brand of eroticism. It made them sizzle and factory production went up by leaps and bounds. Apart from Sladey’s sardonic utterances — ‘Haven’t you heard, dear boy? — The guys from Detroit can’t decide whether they should really call the place Sodom
or Gomorrah, but they’re working on it’ — apart from these snide comments few of the other incubants either probed or cared: it was none of their business and nobody had ever told them it was immoral, so it wasn’t. If anyone needed a better drive-mechanism for the circular saw it arrived outside the factory gates — ahead of time. If extra power was needed from the electric motors run off the ship’s supply, the motors came out delivering twice the horsepower specified. With this kind of productivity you don’t pry into the joy-bubble that makes it so. Most of the time, the factory doors were kept strictly shut, and any spurious squeals of delight were drowned by the thrum of machinery.

  Gradually the ponies relented. They found that in working with these chatty creatures who walked on their hind legs only they got properly fed. Soon, they grew accustomed to being groomed, ridden bareback, jumped over obstacles in recreation-hour, and stroked by those who loved them most. The best rider by far was Krand — confirmed in the view that airplanes were for the birds … except that birds flew better. After a month of riding he altogether despised airplanes. Who the hell wants those noisy things disturbing the peace and quiet? They and the Wright Brothers belong in some museum. Show me the horse that winds up in a museum. Yesterday we rode as far as the Alps and back, and those cute ‘zebras’, they didn’t stall once …

  Futureworld was shaping up.

  And all the time, the enemies within were conspiring to destroy it.

  *

  For reasons that were by no means clear to Trell, two incubants who seemed to be only too alert to the running figure-bass of sabotage were Nembrak the Inventor and the girl Fulda. These two were the mightier half of the General Motors Board of four.

  Fulda, whose complexion was pale at the best of times, was now afflicted by a form of strain which only served to take what shading there had been in her features right out of the photographic plate. Where before she had been slim and sinewed, now she was thin and bony. To look at, she could almost have been a leukaemia victim, but was not.

  Nembrak, formerly excitable and nervously extrovert and brimming with ideas, had gone over to a condition little short of furtive — about the last state of affairs you’d expect.

  That he was sharing some dread secret with Fulda there could be no doubt. Trell wondered whether it might have something to do with the ‘Flying Saucer’ episode, and consulted Kelda.