Daughters of Earth and Other Stories

by Judith Merril

  He was in a warm daze still when Lieutenant Johnson mounted the rostrum to conclude the meal with the evening prayer. Sheik chanted the familiar words of thanksgiving, suddenly meaningful, and looked directly at Sarah as they finished, saying to her and her alone, "Survive in Peace!"

  The Lieutenant read off the cleanup assignments, and then, just as casually as if she were making a routine announcement instead of delivering a stomach punch, added, "There will be gameroom play for Classes Three and Four till bedtime. Special Sessions girls are invited to attend a staff meeting in the wardroom immediate!' after senior supper."

  Sarah threw him a look of mild disappointment. "Tomorrow?" she mouthed. He didn't answer, pretended not to see. Tomorrow? Sure. What difference did it make to her?

  And then he was angry at himself. It wasn't Sarah's fault. And you couldn't blame her for being excited about a wardroom meeting. It had to be something big for the Sessions to get asked in to wardroom. He tried to meet her eye again, but everyone was getting up; people were moving; he caught a glimpse of her back, and then couldn't see her at all. Desultorily, he drifted with the other older children to the lounge and stood staring at the big screen.

  The sun was big now, filling one whole sixteenth sector Maybe the meeting . . . ? He couldn't get excited. There'd been too many false alarms when they began decelerating almost a year ago, rumors and counter rumors and waves of excitement about how the tapes were coming out of the calckers, how it was the planet . . . No, it was poisonous, ammonia atmosphere . . . No, it was just a barren sun . . . It was the right one after all; it had a perfect earth-type atmosphere, one-third the mass . . .

  Meaningless words, after all, to those who had been born on board Survival; words out of books. The older people had been more excited than the kids. "Earth-type meant something to them.

  But that was a year ago, and every day since, the sun had grown bigger on the plate, and no day had brought any real news, except somewhere along the way it had been confirmed officially that there were planets —type as yet unknown. Bob said he thought it would be four or five more months before they came in close enough to give the calckers anything to work on.

  Last year, when they first been decelerating, Bob had talked a lot to Sheik, times when they were by themselves in quarters, the little ones napping or asleep for the night. It was the first time, really, since Sheik's nursery years that he and his father had been close. From the time he was six, when he was assigned for training in the plant rooms, Abdur had grown to fill the role of father-advisor more and more. But when the bright sun started to grow faintly brighter on the viewscreen, Bob's excitement was uncontainable; he poured it out on his son, a boy incredibly grown to where, by the time a landing was likely to take place, he would be in effect one of the men.

  And the men, Bob told him, would have to work together when that happened. Things on a planet would not be quite the same as on board ship. For weeks, Bob reminisced and daydreamed, talking about Earth and its homes and families and governments, about the launching of the ship, Survival, and how and why things were set up on board ship as they were.

  Some of it Sheik had heard in class; other parts he was cautioned to forget except in private. Everyone knew that the Survival was Earth's first starship, a colonizing expedition sent to find a planet—if there was one—suitable for the spillover of the world's crowded billions. Everyone knew the voyage might take years or decades; the ship was completely self-contained; the ion drive made it possible to carry fuel enough for a hundred years. There were living quarters on either side of those now in use that had never been unlocked; if a third or fourth generation grew up on board ship, they'd be needed.

  But if it took that long, it would do Earth no good. If the ship could not return with news of an established colony within fifty years, then it was under orders not to return at all, but to remain and start over altogether in the new place.

  This much was common knowledge, and one further fact: that the original crew of twenty-four had included twenty women and four men for obvious biological race-survival reasons.

  What they didn't tell in classes was why all of the men were subordinates, none of them trained for astrogation, electronics, communications, or any of the skilled jobs of ship control; why all the officers were women. The children took it for granted as they grew; the ship was the way things were and always had been; the readers that spoke of families and pets and churches, towns and villages and lakes and oceans, aircraft and weather, were fascinating, and in a quaint way, true, no doubt; but reality was the ship with its four family units, domestic fathers, energetic women, school dorms, communal meals.

  Bob's talk of men who "ran their own families" and ruled their homes, of male supremacy in the environment of a hostile world, of wives and husbands cleaving one to one faithfully, first intrigued Sheik, then excited him, while he regarded it as fairy-tale stuff. But when his father pointed out one day that there were just as many boys as girls among the children—a fact Yoshikazu somehow had not thought about before—everything the old man said struck home in a new way.

  "Then why did they put the women in charge of everything?" he demanded for the first time.

  Bob's answer was incoherent, angry and fantasizing. Later Sheik took his puzzlement to Ab, who explained, tight-lipped, that women were considered better suited to manage the psychological problems of an ingrown group, and to maintain with patience over many, many years, if needed, the functioning and purpose of the trip.

  "Then when we land . . . ?"

  "When we land, there will be time enough to think about it! Who's been talking to you about all this?"

  "Well, I was asking Bob," Sheik said cautiously. "But . . ."

  "But nothing," Abdur said sharply. "If you're smart, Sheik, you'll forget it now. If anyone else hears this kind of talk from you, your father will be in trouble. Or I will. Forget it."

  And for the most part, he did. Bob never spoke of it again. And Ab spoke only as he always had, of sun and rain, forests and gardens, sunsets and hillsides and farmlands outdoors on a planet.

  Sheik stared at the giant sun on the viewscreen; if they had found their planet, if they landed here, he was almost a man . . .

  No. He was a man. He could do everything a man could do, and he was very strong, stronger than any of the girls. And Sarah, he thought, was very close to womanhood. She was the oldest of the girls; it would be natural. One man and one woman, Bob had said . . . the thought was exciting. There was no other woman he would want to have. Naomi or Fritzi or Beatrice, the other older girls, were nasty. As for the crew—Lieutenant Johnson, maybe, but—but when he thought of Sarah the idea of being at the call of four others besides was obscene somehow.

  Sheik laughed abruptly and turned and left the lounge. He had spent enough time today dreaming fantasies. There was work to do.

  Still, when the last of the little ones was tucked in bed, and the quarters were quiet, Sheik found himself pacing restlessly in the tiny pantry-service room. He had his schoolbooks with him, and had meant to study for the morning's class. But when he tried to read, plant shadows and Sarah's legs and all the things Bob had said raced through his mind, blurring the print. He wished Bob would come back from wherever he was. The kids were asleep; there was only one hour till he himself had to be in dorm, and he was obsessed with the need to go hull-side, to find his cool shadow-corner and lie there where peace was always to be found.

  And obsessed, foolishly, with the idea that after the meeting Sarah might, just might, go down to look and see if he was there . . .

  Bob didn't come. After a while Yoshikazu closed his book, wrote a quick note, "Hullside. Back in a minute," and went out.

  He had never done such a thing before. He had broken rules, yes, but not when the children were in his care. But, really, what could happen? If one of them woke up, if anything went wrong, half an hour could not mean life or death. And ...

  And he didn't care. He had to go.

  Quick
ly and quietly, exhilarated beyond previous experience by the sense of his guilt, he went down cornpanionways towards the hull. He closed the last hatch behind him and stood on the top step looking down into the shadowed vastness of hullside. He was above the lamps. Beneath them was bright yellow light; then pale green, new leaves at the top of the plant stalks. Darker green below. Brownish-green stalks, some slender swaying things, some thick as his own arm. And underneath, the shadows. He started down, quietly still, but beginning already to feel more at ease.

  Then he heard the voice. Bob's voice. Urgent, persuasive.

  "I tell you it's true. This time it's true. I got it straight."

  "Hell, Bob, every time they send in a tech to film something secret, you think that's it. You said the same thing six months ago, and how many times before that?" That was Sean, Sarah's father, who ran the livestock rooms.

  "This time I know I'm right," Bob said quietly. His voice was convincing, even to Sheik.

  "Well, if it is, what do you want us to do, Bob?" Abdur, this time, also quiet. The voices were coming, Sheik realized, from Abby's little private room near the seedbeds.

  "Just that I think it should have been announced. I want to know what they're up to, with that meeting. Ab, have you ever stopped to think that maybe when the time came, the women wouldn't want to land?"

  Silence, shocked silence; Sheik stood like a statue on his step.

  "Come off it, man." Sean. "They're not that crazy."

  "It's not so crazy, Sean," Abdur said thoughtfully, and then: "But I don't see what we could do about it if they didn't. And I don't think they'd hold back, even if they wanted to."

  "You got a lot of trust in human nature, Ab."

  "No-o-o-o. Well, yes. I guess I do. But that's not why. Listen, Robert, what do you think kept you from going off your nut those first five years?"

  "What do you want me to say?" Bob asked bitterly. "God?"

  "Well, He may have helped. But that wasn't what I meant. You were in bad shape for a while. After Alice . . ."

  "Watch yourself, Ab." Bob growled.

  "Take it easy and listen a minute. After what happened—how come you didn't do the same thing?"

  Sheik eased himself down to a sitting position on the top step and listened.

  A lot of it made no sense. Alice had been one of the women, of course; there were nineteen now. Funny he'd never thought of that before! She must have died when he was still a baby. Most of the kids wouldn't even know the name.

  And Bob, Bob had had something to do with Alice. The conversational scraps and fragmentary references were incomplete, but Sheik had a picture, suddenly, of something that had happened to his father, of something like what was, maybe, happening with him and Sarah, and wasn't supposed to happen.

  He tried to think how he would feel, what he would do, if Sarah suddenly—were no more. He could not imagine it. Nobody ever died. Nobody on the ship was more than forty-five. If Bob had felt that way, and then Alice died, he could see why his father was—funny, sometimes. Why he imagined things and made up stories about the time on Earth.

  The twin revelation—the knowledge that what he thought and felt for Sarah had happened to other people, often, and the shocked glimpse of grief inside his father —almost obscured the more immediate importance of what the men said down there.

  "Indoctrination," Ab was saying.

  Alice was the only one who hadn't had it. She had been the ship's doctor; "they," the planners, had thought someone on board, the "stablest" one, should be free of "post-hypno." Words, some new, some old but out of context here. Indoctrinated . . . the women were indoctrinated, too; they couldn't refuse to land the ship. Ab said so.

  The others agreed with him. Bob didn't, at first, but after a while, though he kept arguing, Sheik knew even Bob was convinced.

  Gradually, the voices turned more casual; the conversation slowed. Sheik thought it must be getting close to dorm curfew. He raised the hatch above him cautiously, hoisted himself up through it and let it down with silent care. He reached his own family quarters again without meeting anyone.

  Inside, he put his note down the disposall, checked on the sleeping children, and arranged himself in the galley with a book on his lap, his feet on the counter, and a yawn of boredom on his face. When Bob returned, he hung around hopefully a little while, but Bob was not feeling talkative.

  Sheik had a few minutes till curfew still; without planning it, he found himself in the nightlit empty lounge, at the big screen, watching the giant sun, almost imagining he could see it grow bigger and closer against the dead black , of space, straining his eyes absurdly for the planet . . .

  Planet!

  The pieces began to come together.

  Voices came down the corridor, and a far part of his mind remembered the wardroom meeting, Sarah, the evening's plans. Just coming out now? Maybe he could see her still. That was silly—curfew soon. Well, tomorrow . . . Just coming out now? That was some meeting ...

  Meeting! And Bob said he knew for sure this time the tapes on the planet were through: It was a good one. They could land on it, and live.

  Live on a planet.

  His stomach felt funny for a minute, and he thought that was foolish, what was there to be afraid of?

  Live on a planet. He thought the words slowly and purposefully. Planet. Plants. Plants on a planet. On a planet, plants grew everywhere, by themselves, naturally. That's what Ab said. He said they grew all over, so you'd have to tear them out to make a place to build your house.

  House. Family. Inside-outside. They were all words in the books. Hills, sunsets, animals. Wild animals. Danger. But now he wasn't afraid; he liked the thought. Wild animals, he thought again, savoring it. Houses, inside and outside; inside, the family; outside, the animals. And plants. The sunshine . . . daytime . . . and night ...

  Shadows!

  The light brightened around him. On a planet, there would be shadows all the time everywhere. "Sheik . . ."

  "Yes, ma'am." He turned. The response was automatic . . . "indoctrinated"; . . . even before his mind reoriented.

  The room was daylit again. Five of the women were standing just inside the door. Lieutenant Johnson was smiling, watching him.

  "Better hop, boy. Curfew."

  "Yes, ma'am." He moved past the others. Johnson, closest to the doorway, reached out a hand and rumpled up his hair.

  "Do your dreaming in bed, Sheik," she said tenderly, as if he were in the nursery still. But something was in her eyes that made him know she did not think he was a little boy. He felt better when he, got outside.

  The girls' dorm was to the right; he could see the last of the senior class girls disappearing through the door. If he moved faster ...

  He turned to the left, walked up to the boys' dorm, and almost missed hearing the sharp whispered noise from the cross-corridor beyond.

  He looked back. No one in sight. Raced up the corridor, and she was there, waiting. Waiting for him.

  "Sheik! Shhh . . . I just wanted to make sure . . . Tomorrow night?"

  "Sure," he said.

  Her eyes were shining. Like the Lieutenant, she was looking at him differently. But it was a different kind of difference, and he liked it. Very much.

  "Sure," he said again. "Tomorrow night for sure." But neither one moved. A gong sounded softly. Curfew time.

  "You better get back," she said. "I have a pass." Even her whispering voice was different. She was vibrating with excitement. It was true!

  "Okay," he said. "Listen, Sarah. Let's not wait. What about tonight?"

  "Tonight?"

  "After inspection."

  "You mean . . . ?"

  "Sneak down. It's easy," he promised out of the practice of an hour ago, and lied. "I've done it lots of times."

  "Who with?"

  He smiled. From inside the lounge they heard voices. "Listen, I got to get back. Right now. I'll meet you in Cargo G in half an hour. Then I'll show you how."

  "But, Sheik . . ."


  He didn't wait for her answer. He didn't dare. Johnson or one of the others would be out for inspection any minute now. He ran on his toes, silently, back down the corridor, tore off his clothes, jumped into bed, pulled covers up, and did not open his eyes even to peek and see what officer it was when she came in to inspect the row of beds. He just lay there, astonished at what he had said and what he was—beyond hesitation—going to do.

  He thought of the times he had waited and wanted and hoped for Sarah to ask him, to notice him, to pick him to dance with or play with or for a work partner. Now, all of a sudden, he had thrown himself at her head, suggested ...

  He began to be horrified. It wasn't the idea of breaking curfew rules. Yesterday, even this afternoon, that would have shocked him, but now—knowing about the planet changed all that. What bothered him now was the brazenness of it, the way he had practically begged her to come, and hadn't even waited to find out ...

  He wouldn't go. She'd never go. He was crazy to think ...

  She was laughing at him now.

  I wish, he thought miserably, I wish I was . . .

  Only he didn't. He didn't envy girls any more.

  He lay very quietly in bed for fifteen minutes. Then he got up and pulled on his shorts. He looked at the six other beds in the schoolboys' dorm. Joel, the youngest, was nine, still a kid. The others were twelve, thirteen, eleven, eleven, twelve. Five of them who would soon be men. Like Bob and Ab, Bomba and Sean, and Sheik himself. He left the dorm, slipped down the corridor, thinking as he went of the words he had read somewhere, that he "moved like a shadow."

  I wish, he thought, and turned round a corner to safety, I wish that she comes. And then: I wish that we land on a planet very soon.