by Hal Annas
Sue pointed to the wood and explained that her car was there. Wilson spoke into his communicator and the other car descended in that direction.
“They’ll return it to the dormitory,” he said. “My job is to get you back without creating an emergency.”
“Why are you doing it?” Sue asked. “Why don’t you turn me over to the Council?”
Wilson set the robot controls and turned to face her. “Nobody wants to punish you girls,” he” said softly. “Members of the Council least of all. But they have to maintain discipline. It’s the only way we can get the big job done.”
She understood. She had heard it all a thousand times before. No one’s feelings, nothing, neither life nor death, must be allowed to halt or hinder the big job, the job that was to bring that bright future.
“Can you tell me anything about Darth Brady?” she said.
“I can tell you only that he wears two ribbons and three stars.”
“Two ribbons?” Sue gasped. “Is he dead?”
“No.” Wilson’s voice was deep, controlled with effort. “No. Darth Brady isn’t dead. But, Sue, you must not think about him. You know the rules.”
The tight knot in Sue’s breast worked up into her throat. She blinked rapidly and squeezed the flesh around her eyes to keep the moisture back. “I know the rules,” she said.
Wilson tuned the communicator to the factory. “Tube department foreman,” he said, but didn’t cut in the viewplate. “Al Wilson, from the Center,” he went on. “Sure, Mom, I’m fine. I’ve borrowed one of your girls. Don’t let it get talked about. Will have her back soon.”
“Your mother?” Sue asked.
“Yep! A fine girl. She works fifteen hours a day and still finds time to keep records for the Council.”
“I thought Mrs. Wilson’s boy had gone out. When I was eleven I heard her say he’d already entered the Center. That’s six years ago.”
Wilson’s features clouded. “They won’t let me go. Made me an instructor. If the chain breaks—But that isn’t a subject to discuss with a girl. Look below. That lake! Know what made it?”
“A strike. My mother said it came before I was born. She said we’d been lucky; that the planet has been struck thousands of times; that the moon and Mars have taken an awful beating.”
“We set up decoys,” Wilson explained. “They draw the strikes when a break-through comes. But sometimes a factory gets knocked out.”
“I know.” Sue nodded. “We know what to do. We’ve drilled over and over. And most of the factory is under ground.”
“Part of it, the brick part, was once a school. I went to school there eight terms before I entered the Center.”
“And I went three terms. That’s when they converted it and we had to study in the dorm. Kids study in the nurseries now.”
“How long have you been working in the factory?”
“Since I was nine. Only had to work four hours a day then. Now children begin work at eight.”
“How many hours does your mother work?”
“Fifteen.”
“And when you’re eighteen years old you’ll go on a fifteen-hour shift?”
“Of course. But I’ll have three days vacation when I get married.”
“Did you know the Center is taking boys thirteen now and next year will begin calling them at the age of twelve?”
“All the girls know about it.
The boys are glad to get out of the factories. They talk about nothing else. And they say the age to go out is going to be lowered to eighteen and maybe seventeen.”
“Yes. We’re learning better and faster ways to make men out of kids. And the numbers in the crews are being cut down. The ships are better. One man now can perform all the operations three did a few years ago.”
“The training? Is it very hard?”
“No. It’s just necessary. We know we have to learn and develop in order to survive. It’s just like growing up.”
SUE hesitated. “Is it true—” She paused again, cheeks coloring. “It is true that you can read a girl’s thoughts?”
Wilson grinned. “Don’t worry about it. Those things have been exaggerated. We get flashes under certain conditions. If your emotions were in perfect accord with your thoughts, as ours are supposed to be, wed know what you’re thinking. It’s our one superiority over the—” He halted, clamped his lips tight. Sue knew he had been about to say, “Zeehites.”
“We don’t really read your thoughts,” he went on. “If it was necessary, and we concentrated very hard, we probably could do it.”
“Try just once to get the picture I’ve got in my mind.”
“That’s easy, but you shouldn’t have thoughts like that.”
She blushed crimson. Now she was positive. She had held an image in mind of his features, and he had known, known especially that her thoughts were of him. Confusion and discomfort settled over her. She tried to get her mind on work, but the thought wouldn’t come. Darth Brady’s image, as in the locket, appeared before her. And she was certain that that, too, was known to Wilson. She was hardly aware of what he said from then until the car landed.
Other girls watched her enviously, and yet with trepidation, as she returned to her machine. At every pause in the work they asked questions. “How did you get out?”
“Where did you go?”
“Will you have to appear before the Council?”
She hated to be cattish, but she couldn’t confide in them. She invented a story which was reluctantly accepted. She said she had suddenly become ill and gone to the dorm.
The day wore on. After supper she visited her mother in the older women’s dorm. She didn’t stay long because Mrs. Wilson studied her with too much interest.
But she had asked, “What do two ribbons and three stars mean,” and her mother had replied, “The first ribbon is for courage and conduct beyond the call of duty. The second is generally a posthumous award. If the wearer is alive, it means he has done something wonderful indeed. The stars, of course, denote the number of years he has spent in the void.”
“Any word from Dad?”
“No. Communication channels are overloaded. He wouldn’t ask for a priority unless it was an emergency. I think he’s setting up a plant near those new mines on the Gold Coast. Then he’ll have to go to Mars. They’re crying for logistic experts. I’m hoping he can spend a few hours with us, though.”
“How about uncle Bob and uncle George?”
“Sue, I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that? George has been moved out of the Fourth Sector. You know what that means? His ship will be in the midst of the fighting. And Bob’s ship hasn’t been reported in months. They were operating in Sector One. It’s out near the rim of the galaxy, but has been drawn hack billions of miles in months. The losses in the withdrawal were terrible. All I can learn is that the full extent of the losses won’t be known for weeks.”
“Why do our ships keep on pulling back? We always lose so heavily at those times. Cousin Breckenridge gone; Cousin Allison came back a wrecked old man at the age of twenty; dozens of boys I used to know, broken or dead. And now uncle Bob.”
“Hush, Sue. The final word hasn’t come yet.”
“But it will. And then it will be uncle George. And the Supreme Council keeps calling for more ships, better armament, and, above all, more men. Did you know they’re lowering the age at the Center?”
“Those things are necessary, Sue. They mean survival. We’re not supposed to talk about them. And we’re supposed to go to bed earlier because food rations are to be cut again and we must conserve our strength.”
RETURNING to her section of the dorm, she passed a knot of girls whispering in the corridor. She caught the words “Ida Bella” and “Trilogy” Then “Old men. They look ninety and most are crippled. And not a one is over twenty-two.”
Hurrying, to keep pace with her heart, she went on to her room. As she slipped out of sweater, denims and briefs, she thought, “Dar.th Brady was on Firelance. Maybe
! Maybe—” She knew she was not supposed to hope, neither despair. Nothing that happened must halt or hinder.
The stars beyond the window were bright and close. She thought she could see the rings of blue with white dots in their centers which were said to be visible through a powerful telescope when the fighting was intense.
Next day she applied for an issue of clothes. The elderly woman smiled and shook her head. “You’re very pretty. You wouldn’t be beautiful but you’d certainly be lovely and feminine in a dress. Wish I could issue you an outfit.”
“But I haven’t drawn any clothes in over eight months,” Sue said. “We used to get clothes four times a year, then twice. Now—”
“It can’t be helped,” the woman explained. “They’ve cut production to put more labor and machinery in the heavy industries. Even the boys at the Centers aren’t getting as many uniforms as they were. And they’ll get fewer next year.”
“Oh!”
“If your denims and sweaters have been damaged—”
“No. I’ve three of each. They are just worn.”
“Then you’ll have to make out. The less we have here the more the men can have when they go out. You understand?”
SUNDAY she took advantage of the shorter working-day to go with her mother to the vale between the cultivated rows of cedar and the woodland. She had come here at every opportunity since she could remember. It was here she had been taught that there was something beyond the transient physical life.
Today they walked on through the wood to a point where they could see the lake which had been made by the strike so many years ago. It was more than five miles across and was said to be half a mile deep.
Coming back, they saw a number of uniformed men in the vale. They were gray and wrinkled and some were crippled. She felt her mother’s fingers close tight on her arm, but curiosity wouldn’t allow her to stop.
She stared. He was stooped, his face a mass of wrinkles, his hair snow-white. And he was gibbering. He seemed to recognize no one.
She was suddenly seized with a tremor. A wild raging impulse surged through her. Blindly and without thought, she ran, heedless of bushes, briars and stones. She didn’t stop until she reached the dormitory. She fell face down on her bed and dug her nails into her cheeks and into the flesh about her eyes to make it contract.
Darth Brady was just past twenty, she knew . . .
Night brought a full silvery moon. She could see it from the window as it came above the wood, bright and giving no hint of the ships and activity on its scorched airless surface. Sleep was out of the question.
Slipping into her clothes and with shoes in hand, she swung across the windowsill and lowered herself to the ground. Like a wraith she moved among the cedars and on across the vale and into the wood.
The sound of the machinery in the factory behind her faded. The night was quiet but lustrous with tinted moonlight. It seemed that peace had come, that nowhere in the universe could there be strife. But as she looked at the stars and imagined the rings of blue and white dots, she knew.
Beyond the wood the water in the lake was amber in color, and as she approached, it flashed an image of the heavens and took on a darker hue, almost blood red.
She stood on an outcropping and listened to the sounds of crickets and frogs and thought she heard long sighs like breathing. She thought she saw something white flash on the surface, then dismissed it, tilted her head back and breathed deep of the clean night air.
It seemed that she was alone on a tiny planet which brushed against a bejeweled velvet curtain. She indulged the dream, and when reality began to force itself upon her again she quickly slipped out of her clothes and judged the distance to the water below.
For a moment she stood there, arms raised, body poised, the moon painting her figure a rose pink. Then she dived.
The water was warm, caressing. She came up, tossed her head back to get the shoulder-length dark hair out of her eyes. And then she was certain she heard an exclamation.
PANIC ran through her as it had earlier in the vale. She twisted and turned to look in every direction. Then a head bobbed up in front of her.
“A beautiful dive,” he said. It was Al Wilson. “I was about to warn you and then I couldn’t bear to spoil it.”
She was treading water, confused, not knowing what to do.
“Do you come here often?” he asked.
“No. But you knew I would come soon. I was thinking about it when we flew over, and you knew.”
“Is it so bad?”
“No. But having you read my thoughts—” She turned swiftly and swam hard and strong. The panic was in her again. She felt that he was looking right inside her, noting the quickening of her heart that he himself brought.
It was impossible to escape. Like all men trained at the Center, he was superbly muscled and seemed tireless. With ease he kept pace with her, ignored her confusion, talked on.
In desperation she clung to a rough stone protruding from the bank, started to climb out, dropped back into the water and fought to hold back the tears.
He said, “There’s an easier place to climb a few yards ahead. I’ll go back the way I came and meet you up on the bank.”
Relief came as she watched him swim away, watched the long muscles ripple on his back and shoulders. But it did not last. In feverish hurry she climbed out and twisted and squirmed to get into her clothes. She had hardly got the sweater over her head and her hair brushed back when he appeared.
“Those clothes don’t do you justice,” he said.
Confusion came again.
“But the time will soon come,” he added, “when our girls can have all the fine things written about in the old books.”
“How can you say that,” she asked, “when every report brings news of another withdrawal, another terrible defeat? We’ve lost so many stations among the stars, there can hardly be any left.”
He looked down at the weed-grown earth, and she instantly became contrite. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I’m never supposed to lose hope.”
He studied her eyes until she looked away. His hands found her shoulders. “Sue, there are forces at work about which you’ve never even dreamed. We need time. We need more manpower. We have to go on working. The only thing that can defeat us ultimately is here on this planet. It is our morale. As long as it is high we’ll keep on sending ships out. The moment it breaks we are lost.”
Sue had noticed the tension and constraint in his voice that she had come to associate with the talking of men among themselves when they thought no woman or child was within hearing.
Always they stopped talking when a girl approached, and put on a cheerful front. She wondered if they knew of some dark terror yet to be faced, so horrible that it couldn’t be confided to their women and children. Would a knowledge of that dreadful thing, she asked herself, break the morale on the home planet?
Wilson had changed the subject. He told her about the fine things he had read in books and heard from older men of that past before the beginning of the struggle. It reminded her of the fairy tales she had read as a child. It seemed impossible that a girl could have fine clothes and a house and a husband and children all her own. She couldn’t grasp it. She felt that she wouldn’t know how to live if there weren’t rules to go by. She remembered vaguely when she was very small, that her mother prepared meals in a big white kitchen, but there was little reality in the memory.
He accompanied her back to the dorm and on the way talked of things that stirred forlorn unrest in her body. It was a sense of tingling, suppressed under memory of Darth Brady.
Lifting her to the windowsill, he pressed his lips against her ear and whispered, “I’ve made another request of the Council to send me out.” His arms held her tight enough to stop her trembling. Then he released her and was gone.
FOOD became scarcer as summer became fall and fall became winter. Monkey meat was served twice a week. Hydroponics were the main diet and the bulk had to be mad
e up of edible leaves and woodfibre.
First news of the big breakthrough came on Christmas Eve. The bulletin was not supposed to go up until all in the factory had had an hour to sing carols or do whatever they wished. But somebody made a mistake. Under the wreaths of holly on the bulletin board it told in a few words how Sector One had been breeched. It told of withdrawals, reorganization and shortening of defenses.
On Christmas Day the story was worse. It was not definite as bulletins usually were, but it gave the information that Sector Two was crumbling.
Two days after Christmas she overheard men talking at the groundcar ramps. Their voices were tense, restrained. They said that the links of the chains were snapping and that a strike was sure to come. They talked hopefully of new weapons, better ships that would swing the balance of power in favor of Earthmen.
Sue had heard talk of new weapons and ships many times before.
They always seemed to be in the future. She slipped away from the ramps and volunteered an extra hour’s work in the factory.
Next day there was a general increase in hours. Girls under eighteen went on a fourteen-hour shift. Eighteen to thirty-five, they worked sixteen hours. Under the age of fourteen, none was allowed to work more than ten hours, but girls and boys of eight and nine could volunteer to work seven hours. Their shifts called for six.
The age for admittance at the Centers was lowered to ten. The urge to go out was seventeen, but, as the new classes came along, would be lowered to sixteen and fifteen.
The strike came on New Year’s Eve. There was ample warning. Word reached Earth before daylight that a major break-through had occurred. The Fourth Sector couldn’t halt it, but forces were being drawn back from Three and Two to close the break.
The news was tempered with assurances issued on a global scale by the Supreme Council. It said that their labors and sacrifices had not been in vain; that thousands upon thousands of Earth warships still stood between the planet and the onrushing enemy. It said that the stations on Mars and the Moons of Jupiter were still intact, as well as on Earth’s Moon, and that hundreds of man-made stations were beyond the orbit of Saturn.
