The Tenth Planet (11 page)

“I will be helpful presently,” he retorted, also in Minervan. “Meanwhile, I wish to exchange a few semi-private words with these people for whose safety I was once responsible.”

“Captain Hamilton.” It was the teacher speaking. Her hair was white, Idris noted. Yet she could only be in her late twenties or early thirties—Earth time. He tried to remember the details of the manifest, but could not.

“Captain Hamilton, I do not think we should antagonize our hosts. My name is Mary Evans. I am, as you probably know, the surviving teacher.” She spoke in English, with a pleasing Welsh lilt that sounded entirely marvellous.

“Well, Miss Evans, may I say that your voice is like music to my ears. I have no intention of antagonizing our hosts, as you put it. Indeed, I have every reason to be grateful to them—so far. But I have been somewhat isolated—no doubt you know the facts—and I want to get one or two things clear in my mind. Have the Minervans treated you well? Have they tried to brainwash you or restrict you or compel you in any way?”

Mary Evans smiled. “Captain Hamilton, you are very suspicious, perhaps rightly so. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we are filled with gratitude for what the Minervans have done. Truly, there has been no compulsion of any kind.”

“So you will be content to spend the rest of your days here?”

She sighed. “There is no choice … Let me give you some advice. You are a brave man. We all know what you have endured. But try to adjust to their philosophy. It is for the best.”

“Your hair is white, yet you have a young face.”

“I am now thirty-four Earth years old,” said Mary. “Perhaps the shock of being resuscitated on the wrong planet accounts for the white hair … Be at ease, Captain Hamilton. The Minervans are not sinister. They have been very good to us. Ask any of the children.” She grinned. “If we can still call them children. They are men and women, I suppose. And they have adapted very well.”

He turned to a dark-haired, dark-skinned and quite beautiful girl—the one who was either Indian or Pakistani. “What is your name?”

“Annali Prodoski, sir.”

“You need not say sir, Annali.”

“It is a mark of respect only, Captain Hamilton. You tried so hard to get us to Mars, and we are very grateful.”

“Do you like living here on Minerva?”

She shrugged. “Mars would have been better. But the Minervans are very kind.”

“Have you been out on the surface?”

“No. There is no need. Conditions are very difficult up there, and special training is necessary. Even in a space-suit it is possible to drown in a hydrogen lake. I think—”

“Have you ever wanted to get away from this subterranean life, to go up top and see what it is really like?”

“Yes, but it really is too dangerous.”

“Who says so?”

“The Minervans. Very few of them go to the surface or want to go to the surface. Of course, there are scientists and space engineers who must work out there, and—”

Again he interrupted her. “Annali, do you want to spend the rest of your life in an underground city on a frozen planet six billion miles from the sun?”

Annali Prodoski seemed confused. “When you put it like that, it does not seem a very pleasant prospect. But we have no choice. There is nothing else we can do, is there?”

“There might be,” he said enigmatically.

All the time that he had been speaking in English, Idris had sensed a growing unrest among the Minervans present. He knew that Zylonia and Manfrius de Skun would be able to follow his conversation; but from the blank and hostile looks on the faces of the rest, it was evident that they had no familiarity with a language that had been dead for five thousand years.

He looked at Zylonia and Dr. de Skun, both plainly unhappy at the way things were turning out. There was an atmosphere of tension and hostility among the other Minervans that puzzled him greatly. Well, he would think about that later. Now was the time to take some of the heat out, if at all possible.

He continued his questioning of the Earth children in the Minervan tongue. The tension diminished; but much of the hostility remained.

The responses he got from the children who had once been entrusted to his care were startlingly similar. They were all filled with gratitude for what the Minervans had done. They now thought of themselves not as Earth people but as Minervan citizens. And they seemed content to
spend the rest of their days in the underground cities of this desolate world without ever feeling the need to go out on to the surface and explore.

He was surprised that children of genius level should accept the situation so docilely and should be apparently devoid of curiosity. This, of course, was understandable in the case of those suffering from brain damage. He questioned them carefully—in Minervan. Apart from a Russian boy, Alexei Bolkonski, who had a serious speech defect, the rest were able to answer him rationally. One of them, Natalie van Doren, an American, curiously enough had retained her high intelligence quotient but could not remember anything of her life before she had been resuscitated on Minerva. The remaining three with brain damage had lost their paranormal intelligence but were by no means reduced to the level of cabbages. Their reactions were slow, they needed time to formulate their thoughts; but they got there in the end.

All the children and their teacher, Idris discovered, had integrated well into Minervan culture. Several of them had become involved in scientific projects. Mary Evans, naturally enough, was a specialist in Terran history. Even Alexei Bolkonski held an important post in a new hydroponics project.

Presently, Idris tired of this public encounter. Later, he decided, he would seek out these children—no, he must no longer think of them as children—these people, privately, and try to get behind the masks they apparently displayed for the Minervans. Then, perhaps, he would discover what they really thought and felt.

The interview came to an end. Dr. de Skun seemed relieved. So did Zylonia. So did the Earth children and Mary Evans. In fact, the only person who seemed neither relieved nor satisfied was Idris Hamilton. And he, as he knew, was simply exhausted. The marriage between old brain and new body was a good one. But like all marriages, it needed time to adjust.

H
E WOULD NOT
go back to the simulated master’s cabin of the
Dag Hammarskjold
. Where else was there for him to go? Answer: to the home of Zylonia de Herrens, the woman with whom he had lived—if only in the spiritual sense—since his resurrection. The woman who had stripped for him, who had shit and peed for him, who had eaten for him and moved gracefully for him when he was nothing more than a sentient thing—a few pounds of cells in a nutrient solution.

The home of Zylonia de Herrens …

A splendid place. A small room, with a minute kitchen, and an even smaller bathroom, all hollowed out from rock twenty metres below the surface of Minerva, along a broad, well-lit corridor grandly designated Eastern Avenue, Talbot City. Apartment Ninety-One.

It was comfortable, at least. Maximum use had been made of available space. There was a service wall with a small push-button control console. It concealed extensible furniture—a bed, a table, extra chairs. It also contained a large tri-di screen, a V-phone, a tape-deck and library and a drinks’ cabinet. The wall opposite the door was apparently a large picture window looking out on to an immense garden where non-existent flowers, shrubs and strange grasses matured, bloomed, withered and died. An electronic illusion, but a pleasing electronic illusion. The kind that was
necessary to keep a subterranean race sane.

The wall opposite the service panel was covered by a large curtain. Zylonia touched a button and the curtain rolled back to reveal the glass wall of a fantastic aquarium. It was breathtakingly beautiful. In it were brilliant corals, multi-coloured fish, lobsters, crabs, eels, minute forests of sea-weed and a bed of golden sand.

Idris was astounded, fascinated. He felt he could gaze at it for hours. Here were recognisable creatures of Earth, six billion miles away from their parent planet, swimming about unconcerned in an ideal environment.

“You see,” said Zylonia, “we may live on a frozen world, but we have created for ourselves an environment that fulfils human needs. Would you like a drink?”

“What kind of a drink?” he enquired cautiously.

“Scotch, gin, kafra. White wine or red wine.”

“You produce all these on Minerva?”

“We cannot import them, Idris.”

“Yes, stupid of me. I’m tired. What is kafra?”

“Martian brandy. I thought you would have been familiar with it.”

“No. Evidently it was after my time. But I’ll try it. Brandy is brandy is brandy.”

“That is a strange remark.”

“I paraphrase an ancient Earth writer called Gertrude Stein.”

She poured the drink. “Forgive me. I do not understand the significance.”

“Nor do I, to tell the truth.” He drank and savoured the warmth in his throat. “But brandy still tastes reasonably like brandy … Are you married, Zylonia? Do you have one man only whom you love and with whom you make love? It is one of the questions I should have asked some time ago.”

She smiled. “We do not have permanent one to one relationships. They make for jealousy and possessiveness. At the moment, I am unattached.” She hesitated. “The project has taken too much of my time and energy for me to be able
to respond to sexual stimulus.”

“That is a cold way of putting it.”

“I am a scientist. It is an accurate evaluation, I think.”

He emptied his glass. “This kafra is no match for a good French brandy.” He gave a grim laugh. “But I know that I shall drink no more French brandy; and truly I realise, therefore, that I am in a new Dark Age. May I have another?”

Zylonia refilled his glass and poured one for herself. “You make jokes. That is good. A sign of integration … Do you wish to get drunk?”

“Possibly. I am not entirely used to having a new body. Perhaps I should test its limits of endurance—in a scientific way, of course … What kind of toast do you make on Minerva when you drink with a friend?”

“We say: Talbot lives.”

“I have a better toast.”

“What is that?”

“Earth lives.” He held up his glass. “Will you drink to that?”

“Why not? Earth lives.”

They touched glasses and drank.

“What about children?” said Idris abruptly. “You have to have a one to one relationship to rear children. Or am I being quaint?”

She laughed. “You are being splendidly quaint. The nuclear family is prehistoric. Psycho-historically, it provided the roots for tribalism, nationalism, chauvinism, sectarianism—in short it created a violent and unstable society.”

“Jesus Christ!” he exploded. “I have a hell of a lot to learn about you Minervans.”

“Are you a Christian?” she asked. “My researches show that the Christian countries of Earth were very aggressive and brutal.”

“No, I am not a Christian … If the nuclear family, as you call it, is now obsolete what have you Minervans replaced it with?”

“Our mating criterion is based simply on genetic improvement.
Every woman who is approved by the Department of Genetics has the right to bear two children by approved male donors. In some cases, women with exceptional genetic qualities may bear three children or allow their fertilized ova to be implanted in a suitable host.”

“May I have another shot of kafra?”

Zylonia said: “So you do intend to get drunk. Help yourself, Idris. It is a pity, but I understand. I think that what I have said shocks you. Is that not so?”

Idris poured himself a large one. A very large one. “I name this drink the Hamilton cup. It is to be taken in one swallow.” He drained the glass and laughed. “Hereafter let all Earthmen who touch down on Minerva take the Hamilton cup as I once took the Gagarin cup.”

“Are you already drunk?”

“No, I am not already drunk … Are we monitored?”

She looked genuinely surprised. “No. Why should we be? This is my home. You are my guest.”

“Good. Then, dear Zylonia, I can tell you that your Minervan culture stinks. It stinks of computers, it stinks of that latter day Jesus, Garfield Talbot, and it stinks of scientific dictatorship.”

“You
are
drunk.”

He poured himself another. “Correction. I am only beginning to be drunk. Give me a little time.”

Zylonia stood up. “I think I should call Dr. de Skun.”

“Don’t try to call anyone, Zylonia. You have seen me in action. I am not yet that drunk.”

“You would threaten me?” There was anger in her voice. “I have been trying very hard to believe that you are not a violent man.”

He gave a great sigh. “I am sorry. I apologise. Call Dr. de Skun if you want to … I just wish you wouldn’t, that’s all.”

“Very well, I will not call him yet. Now listen to me carefully, Idris. I have some imagination, and I have considerable knowledge of you. I know, for example, how you feel about Suzy and the other members of your crew. I
know something of your childhood, and I even know about the significance of the Gagarin cup, and the pride you take in the fact that it was offered to you by a great Earth hero. It is all in your psycho-history … So I have some idea of the feelings of isolation and loneliness you feel, and of the suspicions and anxieties you entertain. But please proceed very cautiously, for your sake and for ours.”

He made as if to speak, but she silenced him with a gesture. “No, hear me out, please. Then I will listen to what you have to say. That is fair, is it not?”

“That is fair,” he agreed. “May I have one last shot of this kafra? It’s not bad once you stop trying to compare it with a real brandy.”

She shrugged. “Help yourself. If you choose to use alcohol as a barrier against unpleasant realities, I am sad. But I will not stop you. However, before you become incapable of thinking, there are some things I must tell you. You know that we have worked very hard—Dr. de Skun especially—to restore you to full life. You know also that, because of the success we have achieved, the prospect of immortality, or, at least, a greatly extended life span, seems within the grasp of ordinary Minervan citizens. With the cloning technique and brain transplant, there seems to be no theoretical reason why a person should not live as long as his brain is capable of accepting and storing data, of making rational decisions, of carrying out motor responses, and of maintaining the body he occupies. What you do not know, I think, is that this project is a matter of controversy. That is why, now that the technique has been proved to be physically possible, your subsequent behaviour is of the utmost importance.”