The Non-Statistical Man (21 page)

“Why
did
you come?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head as if in violent protest against something of which he had accused her. “I guess it was just because I promised.”

“Why did you promise?”

“I don’t know!” Suddenly her hands gripped his arms and she pulled herself against him, her cheek flattened against his shoulder.

“John—John—why did it have to be this way?”

His hands pressed against her back as if to stop the shaking of her body. He stroked the hair beside her forehead. “We’ll go back,” he said; “we’ll make them take us back.”

They stood in the silence and the stillness as if trying to press out this moment to eternity. He thought of it: their standing in the cold and sulphurous chamber with the
life of the ship about them. And beyond that the eternal night of space through which plunged the slim tube that encased them and held back the cold death outside.

How far they had come to find this moment. He raised her chin gently with the edge of his hand. “I don’t know anything about you,” he said. “Tell me. I want to know everything that has ever happened to you, every sunrise you have seen, and eyery leaf that has fallen near you.”

She shook her head and tried to di'aw away as if the magic had passed. But he held her.

“There isn’t time for that,” she said. “There’s only time to wonder why we couldn’t have been bom in the same world. You could never understand the harshness of mine—the one I’ve lived in and the one I’m going to. I would suffocate in yours.”

“We’ll find a new one, then,” he said fiercely. “We’ll find one on Earth that will hold us both. I won’t let you go.”

Sudden light from the corridor burst upon them as the heavy door flung open. They clung together spotlighted for an instant and broke apart as Bronson came toward them. Other figures hovered in the doorway.

“You’re making it harder for yourself,” said Bronson. “I’m sorry you didn’t take my advice, John; it will be necessary to confine you to quarters for the remainder of the trip. Please come along now.”

He felt Lora’s hand stiffen momentarily in his, and then release as she moved away.

“We’re going back,” John said to Bronson. “I demand that you send us back to Earth on the next returning ship.”

Bronson shook his head. “I guess you didn’t understand me. There’s no going back; no going back for any of us. In Human Developments you only go forward.”

The central continents of Planet 7 are dry desolation where nothing but the foot-long sand monsters exist. But near the poles are belts of verdure almost a thousand miles in width. At the boundary the ugly sand color shades into living green, and impenetrable forest flourishes beside the barren waste.

All the planet’s moisture finds its way to the hot rivers and lakes of these polar regions. Here the squalid settlements of native life are found; here Earth men have established their Human Developments Project.

In this fantastic jungle, every conceivable Utopian
scheme has been laid out, tried and tested for practicability. Projects planned for a thousand years of time measure the effects of environment and the ability of man to conquer the universe by first conquering himself.

Conceived nearly seventy five years ago by Dr. James Rankin, a government sociologist, the project was first considered a wild impractical scheme to get public money to back fuzzy-headed theories. Rankin proposed the idea shortly after the final settlement of the Great War. Out of the conflict had come the discovery of the over-drive; the first flush of enthusiasm sent out expeditions to the Alpha system, where Planet 7 was found, and explored, and mapped. But that was when lethargy began to set in; world-weariness sapped human energies, and the reports were shelved, construction of star-ships dwindled off ...

Rankin proposed the idea that it would take a new kind of man to survive upon the Earth, but no one knew what kind of man that would be, or if he could be found. Moon-colonies and Mars-colonies had been set up, but something was lacking there . ..

Rankin’s idea took hold, and finally, spontaneous acclaim forced its acceptance upon the government of the world; the leaders seemed to sense that it was the last spurt—there wouldn’t be another if this opportunity were permitted to die. Rankin lived long enough to see the first tiny colony estabished in the forbidding jungles of a far world, encircling an alien star.

Theoretically, it might have been done on some other world in our own solar system, but space-travel made all these worlds seem too close; there was something in the psychological appeal of a planet wheeling around another star—something that proclaimed here was a truly new beginning. ..

In three quarters of a century, the Project had increased to cover nearly all of the northern polar band with its various colonies. There was still controversy over the merits of Human Developments. Controversy that was hot and vehement. Demands were made that secrecy be stripped from the Project, and its record and processes be made public. But volunteering as a colonist remained the only way of gaining such information.

It was not a desire to hide its activities from the world, the Project leaders said, but prior knowledge of the activities there had to be kept from contaminating the thinking
of those who wished to volunteer as the years passed. Government inspectors were allowed to investigate for evidence of mistreatment or mal-practice; they always gave the Project a clean bill of health, and there,, had never been a lack of volunteers. Those chosen were the result of careful screening to obtain proper specimens for the various environments and sociologies being tested.

John Carwell watched the planet slowly fill the port, replacing the star-specked blackness at which he had stared through five long days of imprisonment.

The ship Sashed across the barren central zones. He watched the wind-tom wastes and crags, which faded gradually into the green of the polar region.

Then quite abruptly the ship was enveloped in mist, spearing through the perpetual cloud-blanket that rotated slowly about the polar bands. John stared at it, never moving from his position at the port, his hands clasped behind him, and head bowed low. There was mist, and the occasional flash of green that broke through. Rain cascaded down the sides of the vessel, foretelling the greeting that Planet 7 would hand them as they emerged from the ship.

He watched it and hated it. That was the only emotion he could find within him. He hated Planet 7; he hated Human Developments. But most of all, he hated himself. He should be taking some wild and violent action to defend his position and win him Lora.

But he didn’t know what such action might be. He couldn’t tear at the very walls of the ship, and he couldn’t smash his white fist into Bronson’s implacable face. It wasn’t that kind of a fist; he was trapped and bound.

The door opened quietly behind him. Doris came up quietly. “We’re coming in. Have you got everything ready?”

“Everything but me.” He nodded toward the jungle now visible through the slanting sheets of rain. “I’ll die out there,” he whispered.

“That’s not where we’re going,” exclaimed Doris. “You’ve seen the pictures; you know what Alpha Colony is like. We’re not going to that jungle. That’s where the Control-colonies are.”

She tried to bite the words off even as she said them. John’s face became even more bitter.

“They’ll send
her
out there. What kind of fanatics are they?”

“Remember: it’s what she wants,” said Doris kindly. “She volunteered as a Control. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing at all.”

“I’ll find something. I’ll
make
something to dot”

They never felt the wetness of the storm. A covered gangway reached out from the protection of the terminal, and clamped its warm mouth to the hull of the spaceship. Through it the passengers moved into the dry pleasantness of the terminal building. John did not get a glimpse of Lora; his group was herded quickly away under Bronson’s supervision.

At the opposite side of the building they climbed into a bus that sped them across a paved highway splitting the Jungle. Unreality increased for John, as die car nosed through the curtains of rain. It was like going deeper and deeper into a dream—so deep that he might never wake up.

After an hour’s ride they slowed. As they made a sharp turn he caught a glimpse of a vast, shining bubble that seemed to shoulder aside the jungle. Its gentle curvature hinted at staggering vastness. Then they halted at another terminal building at the edge of the bubble.

There was no talk from any of his companions. They marched machine-like into the building, as if they had already consigned away all will and initiative. But he sensed that actually they were as stunned as he by the impact of arrival at their
final
destination. It had been adventure and daring when they signed their names to the contract binding them to Planet 7 forever; it had been so far away then. Now
John and Doris were shown to adjacent apartments once again. He sat down on the luxurious bed and patted it with finality. “So now we’re supermen,” he said.

The bitterness of his voice cut off any response that Doris might have made. She turned away and walked to the windows, drawing aside the expanse of curtains. She gave a gasp as she looked beyond.

“What is it?” Then John saw beyond the window also.

He saw the landscape whose impact was like the sound of some sweet chord struck softly on a great keyboard.

He got up slowly and stood beside Doris. It was ancient Greece; it was an English countryside, the great forests of old Germany. "

“It’s worth it,” said Doris. “It’s worth it, John. We’ll never have to
fight
this world.”

There were no streets, only footpaths crossing the grassy expanse. No mechanical vehicles could be allowed to break that scene. The. buildings, the houses—they belonged. The whole scene would have been faulty if any one had been removed.

Statuary as glorious as the Age of Pericles was spotted on the vast lawns. Beside this, Earth’s cities as John remembered them were but great slums.

“It’s our home,” Doris murmured, barely whispering. “We’ll never have to leave it; we’ll never have to be tired again.”

There was some strange mood upon her, which he had never seen before, and which he did not understand. It seemed as if he were watching her shed a burden, which he had never known she carried.

But his own could not be dropped. Somewhere in the jungle beyond the great transparent dome that housed Alpha Colony was Lora, unprotected and in savage surroundings.

John was called early next morning for the expected interview with Dr. Wamock, director of Alpha Colony. He was faintly shocked by the initial appearance of the director; Wamock looked like anything but the head of such a group.

He was immense and his eyes were almost hidden in the great roundness of his face. A dead cigar projected from between his fingers. The office was business-like, far removed from the glory that was visible from the apartment windows.

“Sit down, John,” Dr. Wamock said.

A second surprise lay in his voice, which was soft and kindly, and John found himself hastily changing his first estimates.

“Have you ever done anything useful in your life?” said Wamock suddenly.

John hesitated, flushing. “I—I don’t know—”

“That’s good enough. I don’t know if I have, either.

Some people have the most fantastic views of their own accomplishments. I wondered about you.

“We were all pleased to learn you were coming. Papa Sosnic especially. He wants to hear you; hell be around this afternoon.”

“Papa Sosnic?”

“The dean of the group; claims to be the first member. He’s almost ninety years old. He’s looking for the Great Musician and the Great Music before he dies. He claims the colonies are sterile and have never produced any. But you’ll hear all of that from his own lips. Tell me about your music.”

John shrugged. “It has been a living.”

“Is that all? Don’t you like your music?”

He smiled wanly and told Wamock about his childhood with Doris, who had a dream for them both. He told how she had beat him into submission and forced him to endless practice when he was little.

“And so you hate your music,” said Wamock.

“No.” John shook his head. “That’s the strange part of it. I should, but I don’t.”

“Why?”

“That’s hard to say. I’ve never tried to tell anyone, especially Doris; she would never understand why I go on playing.”

“Can you tell me?” said Wamock.

John found himself doing that, without understanding why. Wamock seemed to him as vast in comprehension as in physical body, and John’s feelings spilled.

“The writers, the poets, and the artists have all been men,” he said. “The great ones, that is. A woman can’t be a great artist. But I could never tell Doris that. It’s a man’s way of crying and laughing, and saying that the world is a good and happy place; that’s why he makes music and writes books and paints pictures.

“A woman doesn’t have to do that; she can’t. She has a thousand other ways. But a man is supposed to be a mute dumb animal who never thinks of these things. Some of us stumble onto the acceptable way of saying what we have inside.”

“Your sister,” said Wamock, “why do you suppose she plays?”

John shook his head and smiled. “She doesn’t understand music. She plays through her head—not her heart.”

“She takes the lead in all your work. Why do you let her do that?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t understand if I tried to tell her how I want to play; I guess I’m afraid that no one else would understand either.”

“I think Papa Sosnic will understand,” said Wamock. He arose suddenly and extended a hand. “He will be around to see you and your housing-assignments are being made. We will let you know.”

John felt guilty as He walked back to the apartment. He had said things that should not have been said; he had no right to speak of Doris as he had. But his regret faded before the recurring thought of Lora.