Rite of Passage

by Alexei Panshin

  He came on the screen by the buzzer and said, “Oh, hello Mia.”

  I said, “Hi.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to talk to you about something. Get dressed and come on down.”

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll be down as soon as I get some clothes on.” He rang off and his image faded.

  So I picked a seat and waited for him. He hadn’t been living in the dorm long, only a year or so. His birth had been a result of a suggestion by the Ship’s Eugenist—his parents had barely known one another—but his mother had wanted him and raised him. When he was eleven, however, she had decided to get married, and on Jimmy’s own suggestion he had moved into a dorm.

  “I didn’t want to be underfoot,” he’d said to me. “I do go over there evenings sometimes. And I see my father, too, from time to time.”

  Perhaps it was because he could move back with his mother if he wanted that he didn’t find living in the dorm painful. He seemed to view it as just a temporary situation to be lived with until he came back from Trial and could have an apartment of his own. In any case, I hadn’t gone into the subject of dorm living too deeply with him, not because I hesitated to probe his tender spots but because I would have been probing my own. This is called tact, and is reputed to be a virtue.

  There were kids playing a board game of some sort as I sat in my chair. I watched the game and I watched the people watching the game, and I watched people passing, but nobody watched me at all. Jimmy came down in a few minutes and I got out of my chair, quite ready to be gone.

  By way of greeting, I said, “What I really want to know is whether you want to go over with me on Friday.”

  “Where?”

  “What do you mean, ‘where?’ ”

  “Mia, you know I’d go anywhere you asked. Simply name a place and lead the way.”

  “You’re lucky I’m not bigger than you are. If I were bigger, I’d hit you. You don’t have to be smart.”

  “Well, where is it that you’re going?”

  “Don’t you know what I’m talking about?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  I got out the note that had come for me yesterday and unfolded it. It said that I was to have a physical examination Wednesday, and on Friday I was to assemble with the others in my survival class at Gate 5, Third Level for our first meeting. I handed the note to Jimmy and he read it.

  This first meeting of my survival class would be on Friday, June 3, 2198. My physical would be one year and six months to the day before we would be dropped on one colony planet or another to actually undergo Trial. There is no rule that says a child has to attend a survival class, but in actual practice everybody takes advantage of the training that is offered. Clear choices as to the best course to take in life are very rare, and this was one of those few. They don’t drop us simply to die. They train us for a year and a half, and then drop us and find out how much good the training has done us.

  New classes are started every three or four months and the last one had been in March, so this note was not unexpected. Since Jimmy had been born in November, too, as he had been so quick to point out when we first met, he was bound to be in the same class with me. Frankly, I wanted company on Friday.

  “I didn’t know about, this,” Jimmy said. “I should have a note, too. When did this come?”

  “Yesterday. I thought you’d call me this morning about it but you didn’t.”

  “I’d better check this out. Hold on here.” He went off to find the dorm mother and came back in a few minutes with a note similar to mine. “It was here. I just never looked for it and she never thought to mention it.”

  There was one thing that irritated me about Jimmy, but that in a way I admired. Or, perhaps, something I marveled at. On at least two occasions, I had called Jimmy and left a message, once to call me back, once to say I wasn’t going to be able to make our meeting with Mr. Mbele. Neither time did he get the message, because neither time did he stop to look for one. That irritates me. I also feel envious of anyone who can be so unanxious about who might have called. Jimmy simply says that he’s so busy that he never stops to worry about things like that.

  Jimmy liked the idea of going to the first meeting on Friday together. To this time, at least, we were not close friends—there was an element of antagonism—but we did know each other and we had Mr. Mbele in common. It seemed to make sense to both of us to face the new situation together.

  As we were on our way to Mr. Mbele’s, I said, “Do you remember when I got back from Grainau and I was talking about that boy and his sister to you and Mr. Mbele?”

  “The one with the weird ideas of what we’re like?”

  “Yes. One of the things they said was that we went around naked all the time. I was objecting to all the things they were saying. I wonder what I would have said if they’d been here to see you on the vid without even your socks on.”

  “I suppose they would have thought they were right all along,” Jimmy said reasonably.

  “Yes. But they weren’t.”

  “I don’t know. I was naked, wasn’t I?”

  “Sure, but that was in your own room. I go naked at home, too. They thought we never wear clothes.”

  “Well,” Jimmy said brightly, “there’s no real reason we ought to, is there?” He started to pull his shirt off over his head. “We could be just what they think we are, and we wouldn’t be worse because of it, would we?”

  “Don’t be perverse,” I said.

  “What’s perverse about going naked?”

  “I’m talking about your contrariness. Are you going to eat dirt just because they think we do? I shouldn’t have brought the subject up in the first place. It just struck me as something incongruous.”

  “Incongruous,” Jimmy corrected, putting the accent on the second syllable where it belonged.

  “Well, however you pronounce it,” I said. This comes of reading words and not having heard them pronounced. This also was a matter of talking about the wrong things to the wrong people. It seemed that I might do better just to leave Grainau out of my conversations completely. Just after I’d gotten back home, I’d made the mistake of saying what I really thought about the Mudeaters in front of Jimmy and Mr. Mbele.

  “Do they really stink?” Mr. Mbele asked.

  Jimmy and I were seated on the couch in Mr. Mbele’s apartment. I had my notebook with notes on my reading, subjects I wanted to bring up, and some book titles that Mr. Mbele had suggested. I realized that I’d just said something I couldn’t really defend, so I backtracked.

  “I don’t know if they do. Everybody says they do. What I meant is that I didn’t like what I saw of them.”

  “Why not?” Jimmy asked.

  “Is that a serious question, or are you just prodding?”

  “I’m interested, too, Mia,” Mr. Mbele said. In his case, I could tell that it was a seriously intended question, not just digging. Mr. Mbele never did any ganging up with either one of us against the other.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “We didn’t get along. Do I have to have a better reason than that?”

  “Of course,” Jimmy said.

  “Well, if you think so,” I said, “give me one good reason you have for being so antagonistic.”

  Jimmy half shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

  “You don’t have one,” I said. “I just said something you didn’t take to. Well, I didn’t take to the Mudeaters. I can doggone well say they stink if I want to.”

  “I guess so,” Jimmy said.

  “Hmm,” Mr. Mbele said. “What if it doesn’t happen to be true? What if what you say damages the other person, or if you are just building yourself up by tearing another person down.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Would you agree that it isn’t a good policy?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Well, it’s my personal opinion that saying the Colons stink is simply a self-justifying myth invented to mak
e us feel morally superior and absolutely in the right. Your statement is likely to keep me from listening to any valid arguments that you might actually have. That certainly wouldn’t do you any good.”

  Jimmy had been following the argument. He said, “How about this? It’s all right to dislike people for poor reasons, but not to call them names. You don’t have to justify your dislikes, but you have to justify your contentions.”

  “That’s a little oversimplified,” Mr. Mbele said.

  For the moment I was off the hook, and since I was struck by a thought, I brought it forward. “What about the people whom you ought to like—only you don’t? And the people you ought not to like that you do?”

  “And what does all that mean?” Jimmy asked.

  “Well, say you and I agree on everything, and I respect you, and you never do me any harm—like backbiting all the time for no good reason—and yet I can’t stand you. Or say there were somebody I ought to dislike—a total rat, somebody who’ll do anything if he sees advantage in it—and I like him. Can you separate liking from what a person does?”

  Mr. Mbele smiled, as though the course of the conversation amused him. “Well, do you separate them?”

  “I suppose I do,” I said.

  “Jimmy?”

  Jimmy didn’t say anything for a minute while he decided whether he did or whether he didn’t. I already knew the answer, having just worked it out myself. Everybody does, or there wouldn’t be charming socially-accepted bastards in the world.

  Jimmy said, “I suppose I do, too.”

  I said, “What I think I mean was should you separate them?”

  “Isn’t it more to the point to ask whether it makes any difference if you do or not?”

  “You mean, if you can’t help it anyway?”

  “No,” Mr. Mbele said. “I meant do your emotions make a difference in your judgment of people that you like or dislike?”

  Jimmy said, “Alicia MacReady? Everybody likes her, they say. Will that make any difference in what the Assembly decides?”

  Alicia MacReady was the woman who was carrying an illegal baby. The question of what to do in the case had come up before the Council, but it hadn’t stayed there. She had apparently thought that she would get more lenient treatment if the Ship’s Assembly were to make the judgment, so before the Council could decide, she had opted to take the matter out of their hands. The Council had agreed, as in difficult or important cases they were likely to.

  The Ship’s Assembly was a meeting of all the adults in the Ship, coming together in the amphitheater on Second Level, and voting. Since she was a popular person—I’d heard this only; until this had come up I’d never heard of her or met her—the MacReady woman wanted to face the Assembly, hoping her friendships would count for more than they would in Council.

  “That’s a good example,” Mr. Mbele said. “I don’t know if it will make a difference. I would suggest that since you can’t attend, you watch what goes on on your video. Then perhaps we can discuss the decision next time. This is just part of a larger problem, however: What constitutes proper conduct? That is, ethics. This is something an ordinologist”—a nod to Jimmy—“or a synthesist”—a nod toward me—“should be thoroughly familiar with. I’ll give you titles to start with. Take your time with them, and when you’re ready to talk, let me know.”

  So he started us reading in ethics. He went to his bookshelves and called off titles and authors for us to copy: Epicureans and Utilitarians; Stoics; Power Philosophers, both sophisticated and unsophisticated; and Humanists of several stripes. All these not to mention various religious ethical systems. If I’d known all this was to come out of my one simple, honestly prejudiced remark, I would never have opened my mouth. Maybe there is a lesson in that, but if there is, I’ve never learned it; I still have an unbecoming tendency to open my mouth and get myself in trouble.

  * * *

  I saw Dr. Jerome on Wednesday, June 1. I’d seen him once or twice a year ever since I could remember. He was of middle height, inclined to be portly, and like most doctors wore a beard. His was black. I’d asked him about it when I was much younger and he’d said, “It’s either to give our patients confidence or to give ourselves confidence. I’m not sure which.”

  As he examined me, he talked as he always did, a constant flow of commentary directed half at me and half at himself, all given in an even, low-pitched voice. Its effect, and perhaps its intention, was to give reassurance in the same way that a horseman soothes a skittish colt with his voice. It was part of Dr. Jerome’s professional manner.

  “Good enough, good enough. Sound. Good shape. Breathe in. Now, out. Good. Hmm-hum. Yes. Good enough.”

  There’s always the question of how much you can believe of what a doctor says—he has one of those ethical problems in how much he can tell you—but I had no reason not to believe Dr. Jerome when he told me I was in perfectly sound shape. I was due for no treatments of any kind before starting Survival Class. I was in first-class condition.

  “It’s always good to see you, Mia,” he said. “I wish everybody were in as good health. I might have a little more spare time.”

  He said one other thing. When he took my height and weight, he said, “You’ve gained three inches since the last time you were here. That’s very good.”

  Three inches. I wasn’t sure whether it was Daddy’s doing or nature, but I wasn’t displeased to hear it.

  Chapter 8

  JIMMY AND I GOT OFF THE SHUTTLE at Entry Gate 5 on the Third Level. This was supposedly where our group was to meet at two o’clock. We were about ten minutes early. The shuttle door slid open and we left the car. When we were clear, the car flicked away, responding to a call from another level, much like an elevator. On the cross-level line, a few feet away, there were several cars just sitting and waiting to be called.

  The door leading out of the shuttle room was double, with both sides standing open. Above it a sign read: ENTRY GATE 5, THIRD LEVEL: PARK. Through the open door I could see light, grass, dirt, and a number of kids about my age, all beyond the gate.

  “There they are,” Jimmy said.

  The Third Level is divided into three distinct and separate types of areas. First there are the areas under cultivation, producing food, oxygen, and fodder for the cattle we raise. Beef is our only on-the-hoof meat, our other meats coming from cultures raised in vats, also here on the Third Level. The second type of area is park. Here there are trees, a lake, flowers, grassland, picnic areas, room to walk, room to ride. This is what you might wish the planets were like. The last type of area is the wilds, which is much like the parks but more dangerous. As the maps might have it, here there are “wilde beastes.” The terrain is more sudden and the vegetation is left to find its own way. It’s designed for hunting, for chance-taking, and for training not-quite-adults. I’d never been in the wilds up to this time, only in the ag and park areas.

  “Come on, then,” I said.

  We went through the doors, then through what amounted to a short tunnel, perhaps ten feet long. The transparent gate dilated and we went through. Outside there were trees and stables, a corral among the trees, and a building that had a wall from about two feet off the ground to about seven feet, and about three feet higher an open-gabled roof. This held lockers and showers.

  It was only here on the Third Level that you could appreciate the size of the Ship. Everywhere else there were walls at every hand, but here your view was all but unimpeded. It was fully miles to the nearest point where roof above and ground below met shipside. The roof was three hundred feet up and it took a sharp eye to pick out sprinklers and such as individual features.

  Behind us, the shuttle tube rose out of the station and disappeared blackly into the roof far above. The cross-level shuttle tube went underground from the station so that it was not visible.

  It was still before two, so the kids who were there already were standing under the trees by the corral and watching the horses. I recognized Venie Morlock amon
g them. I wasn’t surprised to see her there since she was only one month older than I and I had expected that we would wind up in the same Trial group.

  Others were arriving behind us and coming out of the shuttle station. Jimmy and I moved over to join the others watching the horses. I suppose I might have learned to ride when I was smaller just as I had learned to swim, but for no good reason in particular, I hadn’t. I wasn’t afraid of horses, but I was wary of them. There was another girl who wasn’t. She was reaching through the fence and teasing one, a red roan mare.

  A tall, large-built boy near us looked at her and said, “I can’t stand children and that Debbie is such a child.”

  A moment later there was a metallic toot as somebody blew on a whistle. I looked at my watch and saw that it was two exactly. There were two men standing on the single step up to the locker building. One had a whistle. He was young, perhaps forty-five, and smooth-skinned. He was also impatient.

  “Come on,” he said, and beckoned irritatedly. “Come on over here.”

  He was about medium height and dark-haired, and he had a list in his hand. He looked like the sort of person who would spend his time with lists of one sort or another. There are people, you know, who find no satisfaction in living unless they can plan ahead and then tick off items as they come.

  We gathered around and he rattled his paper. The other man stood there rather quietly. He was also medium height, but slighter, older, considerably more wrinkled, and much less formally dressed.

  “Answer when your name is called,” said the young man, and he began reading off our names. He started with Allen, Andersson and Briney, Robert, who was the large boy who was unenthusiastic about children, and he ended, with Wilson, You, and Yung. There were about thirty names.

  “Two missing,” he said to the other when he was done. “Send them a second notice.”