Текст книги "Captive Universe"

Автор книги: Harry Harrison

Соавторы: Harry Harrison
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2

“What is it?” Chimal asked, looking apprehensively at the steaming, brown slab of meat on the plate before him. “There is no animal that I know that is big enough to provide this much meat.” The suspicious look he gave the Master Observer inferred that he suspected which was the only animal large enough to supply it.

“It is called a beefsteak, and is particularly fine cut that we eat only on holidays. You may have it every day if you wish, the meatbank can supply enough.”

“I know of no animal named a meatbank.”

“Let me show you.” The Master Observer made an adjustment on the television set on the wall. His private quarters had none of the efficient starkness of the watchmen’s cells. Here was music from some hidden source, there were paintings upon the walls and. a deep carpet on the floor. Chimal, scrubbed clean and beardless after rubbing on a depilatory cream, sat in a soft chair, with many eating utensils and different dishes set before him. And the cannibalistically large piece of meat.

“Describe your work,” the Master Observer said to the man who appeared on the screen. The man bowed his bead.

“I am a Refection Tender, and the greatest part of my work is devoted to the meatbank.” He stepped aside and pointed at the large vat behind him. “In the nutrient bath here grow certain edible portions of animals, placed here by the Great Designer. Nutrients are supplied,, the tissues grow continually and pieces are trimmed off for our consumption.”

“In a sense these pieces of animal are eternal,” Chimal said when the screen had darkened. “Though part is removed, they never die. I wonder what the animal was?”

“I have never considered the eternal aspects of the meatbank. Thank you. I will now give it much thought because it seems an important question. The animal was called a cow, that is all I know about it.”

Chimal hesitantly ate one bite, then more and more. It was better than anything he had ever tasted before. “The only thing missing are the chillies,” he said, half aloud.

“There will be some tomorrow,” the Master Observer said, making a note.

“Is this the meat you give to the vultures?” Chimal said, in sudden realization.

“Yes. The less desirable pieces. There is not enough small game in the valley to keep them alive, so we must supplement their diet.”

“Why have them at all, then?”

“Because it is written, and is the Great Designer’s way.”

This was not the first time that Chimal had received this answer. On the way to these quarters he had asked questions, was still asking questions, and nothing was held back from him. But many tunes the Watchers seemed as unknowing about their destinies as the Aztecs. He did not voice this suspicion aloud. There was so much to learn!

“That takes care of the vultures,” he had a sudden memory of a wave of death washing toward him, “but why the rattlesnakes and scorpions? When Coatlicue entered the cave a number of them came out. Why?”

“We are the Watchers and we must be stern in our duty. If a father has too many children he is not a good father, because he cannot provide for them all and therefore they go hungry. It is the same with the valley. If there were too many people, there would not be enough food for all. Therefore when the population exceeds a certain number of people of both sexes, worked out on a chart kept for that purpose, more snakes and insects are permitted to enter the valley.”

“That’s terrible! You mean those poisonous things are raised just to kill the people?”

“The correct decision is sometimes the hard one to make. That is why we are all taught to be strong and steadfast and to hew to the plan of the Great Designer.”

There was no immediate answer to that. Chimal ate and drank the many good things before him and tried to digest what he had learned so far. He pointed his knife at the row of books across the room.

’I’ve tried to read your books, but they are very difficult and many of the words I don’t know. Aren’t there simpler books someplace?”

“There are, and I should have thought of it myself. But I am an old man and my memory is not as good as it should be.”

“May I ask… just how old are you?”

“I am entering my one hundred and ninetieth year. As the Great Designer wills, I hope to see my full two hundred.”

“Your people live so much longer than mine. Why is that?”

“We have much more to do in our lifetimes than simple farmers, therefore our years are the reward of our service. There are machines that aid us, and the drugs, and our eskoskeletons support and protect us. We are born to serve, and the longer that life of service, the more we can do.”

Once again Chimal thought about this, but did not speak his thoughts. “And the books you were talking about…?”

“Yes, of course. After today’s service I will take you there. Only Observers are allowed, those who wear the red.”

“Is that why I am wearing these red clothes as well?”

“Yes. It seemed wisest. It is the best, and most suitable for the First Arriver, and all the people will respect you.”

“While you are at the service I would like to see the place where the watchmen are, where they can see into the valley.”

“We will go now, if you are ready. I will take you myself.”

It was a different sensation to walk these tunnels without fear. Now, in his red clothing with the Master Observer at his side, all doors were open to him and the people saluted when they passed. Watchman Steel was waiting for them at the entrance to the observation center.

“I want to ask forgiveness,” she said, eyes downcast. “I did not know who you were.”

“None of us knew, Watchman,” the Master Observer said, and reached out to touch her deus. “Yet that does not mean we should avoid penance, because an unconscious sin is still a sin. You will wear a mortification, thirty days, and come to love it.”

“I do,” she said fervently, hands clasped and eyes wide. “Through pain comes purification.”

“May the Great Designer bless you,” the old man said, then hurried away.

“Will you show me how you work?” Chimal asked.

“I thank you for asking me,” the girl answered.

She led him into a large, circular, high-domed room that had screens inset into the wall at eye level. Watchmen sat before the screens, listening through earphones and occasionally talking into microphones that hung before their lips. Another raised observation station was in the center of the room.

“The Master Watchman sits there,” Steel said, pointing. “He organizes the work of us all and guides us. If you will sit here I will show you what to do.”

Chimal sat at an empty station and she pointed out the controls.

“With these buttons you choose the pickup you wish to use. There are 134 of them, and each one has a code and a watchman must know every code for instant response. They take years to learn because they must be perfect. Would you care to look?”

“Yes. Is there a pickup at the pond below the falls?”

“There is. Number 67.” She tapped the buttons and the pool appeared, seen from behind the falls. “To hear, we do this.” Another adjustment and the splashing of water was clear in his headphone, and the song of a bird belled out from the trees. The image was sharp and in color, almost as though he were looking through a window in the rock at the valley outside.

“The pickup is mounted on the valley wall – or inside of it?” he asked.

“Yes, that is where most of them are so they will not be detected. Though of course there are many concealed inside the temples, such as this.” The pool vanished and Itzcoatl appeared, pacing on the broad steps of the pyramid below the temple. “He is the new first priest. As soon as he was officially declared so, and had made the proper prayers and sacrifices, we permitted the sun to rise. The Sun Tenders say that they always welcome a chance to stop the sun for a day. It is a good chance to overhaul and adjust it.”

Chimal worked the controls, picking numbers at random and feeding them into the machine. There appeared to be pickups all around the valley walls, and even one set into the sky above that gave a panoramic view of the entire valley. It could be turned and had a magnifying attachment that could bring the valley floor very close and clear, though of course there was no sound with the picture.

“There,” Steel said, pointing at the image, “you can see the four high rocks that are along the river bank. They are too steep to be climbed…”

“I know, I have tried.”

“… and each one has a twin pickup on its summit. They are used to observe and control Coatlicue in the case of special circumstances.”

“I had one of them on screen earlier,” he said, pressing the buttons, “number 28. Yes, there it is.”

“You remember that code very quickly,” she said in awe. “I had to study many years.”

“Show me some other things here, if you will,” Chimal asked, rising.

“As you wish. Anything.”

They went first to the refectory where one of the tenders insisted that they be seated and brought them warm drinks. The others had to help themselves to food,

“Everyone seems to know about me,” he said.

“We were told at the morning service. You are the First Arriver, there never has been one before, and everyone is very excited.”

“What are we drinking?” he asked to change the subject, not enjoying the look of awe on her white face, the gaping mouth and slightly reddened nostrils. “It is called tea. Do you find it refreshing?” He looked around the large room, filled with the murmur of voices and the rattle of eating utensils, and suddenly realized something. “Where are the children? I don’t think I have seen one anywhere.”

“I do not know anything about that,” she said, and her face was, if possible, whiter. “If there are any they must be in the place of the children.”

“You don’t know? That’s a strange answer. Have you ever been married yourself, Watchman Steel? Do you have any children?”

Her face was bright red now, and she gave a small muffled cry as she sprang to her feet and ran from the refectory.

Chimal finished his tea and returned to find the Master Observer waiting for him. He explained what had happened and the old man nodded gravely.

“We can discuss it, since all things are guided by the observers, but the watchmen feel soiled by this kind of talk. They lead lives of purity and sacrifice and are far above the animal relationships that exist in the valley. They are Watchers first, women second, or women never for the most faithful ones. They weep because they were born with female bodies which embarrass them and hamper their vocation. Their faith is strong.”

“Obviously. I hope you won’t mind my asking – but your Watchers must come from someplace?”

“There are not many of us and we lead long and useful lives.”

“I’m sure of that. But unless you live forever you are going to need new recruits. Where do they come from?”

“The place of the children. It is not important. We can go now.” The First Observer rose to leave, but Chimal was not through yet.

“And what is at that place? Machines that make full grown children?”

“I sometimes wish there were. My hardest task is the controlling of the place of the children. There is no order. There are four mothers there now, though one will die soon. These are women who have been chosen because, well, they did not do satisfactory work in their studies and could not master their assignments. They became mothers.”

“And the fathers?”

“The Great Designer himself has ordered that. A frozen sperm bank. The technicians know how to use it. Great are His mysteries. Now, we must leave.”

Chimal knew that was all he would hear at this tune. He dropped the subject but did not forget it. They retraced the route they had taken when he had come here, after the observers had seen the alarm and gone to capture him. Through the great hall and down the golden corridor. The Master Observer pushed open one of the doors and showed him inside.

“It has been here since the beginning, waiting. You are the first. Simply sit in the chair before the screen and you will be shown.”

“You will stay with me?”

For the first time the old man’s down-tilting mouth curved reluctantly into a resigned smile. “Alas, that is not to be. This place is for arrivers only. It is my faith and my duty to tend it for them so it will always be ready.” He went out and the door closed behind him.

Chimal sat in the comfortable chair and looked for a switch to start the machine, but this was not necessary. His weight in the chair must have actuated the device because the screen lit up and a voice filled the room.

“Welcome,” the voice said. “You have come to Proxima Centauri.”

EROS, one of the many asteroids in the asteroid belt, an area of planetary debris between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, though there are violations to this rule. Eros is the most exceptional, with its orbit almost reaching that of Earth’s at one point. Eros, cigar shaped, twenty miles long, solid rock. Then the plan. The greatest plan executed by mankind in a history of great plans, originated by the man first called the Great Ruler now, truly, the Great Designer. Who else but He could have conceived of a project that would take sixty years to prepare – and five hundred years to complete?

Eros, swinging close to Earth to receive its new destiny. Tiny ships, tinier men, jump the gap of airless space to begin this mighty work. Deep inside the rock they drill to first prepare their quarters, for many will live out their lives here, then further in to hollow out the immense chamber that will house a dream…

FUEL TANKS, filling them alone takes sixteen years. What is the mass of a mountain twenty miles long? Mass, it will supply its own reaction mass, and the fuel will eject that mass and someday it will move, out and away from the sun that it has circled for billions of years, never to return…

THE AZTECS, chosen after due consideration of all the primitive tribes of Earth. Simple people, self sufficient people, rich in gods, poor in wealth. Still, to this day, there are lost villages in the mountains, accessible only by footpath, where they live as they did when the Spaniards first arrived hundreds and hundreds of years earlier. One crop, corn, consuming most of their time and supplying most of their food. Vegetarians for the most part, with a little meat and fish when it is available. Brewing a hallucinatory drink from the maguey, seeing a god or a spirit in everything. Water, trees, rocks, all have souls. A pantheon of gods and goddesses without equal; Tezcatlipoca lord of Heaven and Earth, Mixtec lord of death, Mictla-tecuhtli lord of the dead. Hard work, warm sun, all-pervading religion, the perfect and obedient culture. Taken, unchanged, and set down in this valley in a mountain in space. Unchanged in all details, for who can guarantee what gives a culture adhesion – or what, if taken away, will bring it down? Taken whole and planted here, for it must continue unchanged for five hundred years. Some small truths added, minor alterations it is hoped will not destroy it. Writing. Basic cosmology. These are needed when the Aztecs finally emerge from the valley and their children take up their destiny.

DNA CHAINS, complex intertwined helixes with infinite permutations. Builders of life, controllers of life, with every detail from the hair on the leg to the flea on the body of the twenty ton whale locked into their convolutions. Billions of years developing, unraveled in short centuries. Is this the code for red hair? Replace it with that and the child will have black hair. Gene surgery, gene selection, delicate operations with the smallest building blocks of life, rearranging, ordering, producing…

GENIUS, exceptional natural capacity for creative and original conceptions, high intelligence quotient. Natural capacity, that means in the genes, and DNA. In a world population there are a goodly number of geniuses in every generation, and their DNA can be collected. And combined to produce children of genius. Guaranteed. Every time. Unless this genius is masked. For every capacity and condition in the genes there is a dominant and a recessive. Father dog is black and black is dominant and white is recessive, and he has that too. Mother is all black too. So they are BW and BW and, as the good Mendell taught, these factors can be plotted on the square named after him. If there are four pups they will be BB, BW, BW and WW, or a white dog where none was before. But is it possible to take a dominant and make it artificially recessive? Yes, it is possible. Take genius, for instance. They did take genius. And they tied it down to stupidity. Dimness. Subnormality. Passivity. Prison it in slightly different ways in two different groups of people and keep them apart. Let them have children, generation after generation of obedient, accepting children. And each child will carry that tied-down dominant, untouched and waiting. Then, some day, the right day, let the two groups meet and mingle and marry. The bonds are then released. The tied-down dominant is no longer recessive, it is dominant. The children are – children of different parents than their parents? Yes, perhaps they are. They are genius children.

There was so much to be learned. At any point in the recorded lecture Chimal could press the question button and the pictures and voices would halt while the machine printed a list of references about the material then being covered. Some of these were recorded visual lectures that the viewer would play for him, others were specific volumes in the library. The library itself was a galaxy unexplored. Most of the books were photorecordings, though there were bound volumes of all the basic reference texts. When his head and his eyes ached from too much study and concentration, he would go through the library at random, picking up volumes and flicking through their pages. How complex the human body: the transparent pages of the anatomy text turned one by one to reveal the organs in vivid color. And the stars, they were giant burning spheres of gas after all, for here were charts with their temperatures and sizes. Page after page of photographs of nebulae, clusters, gas clouds. The universe was gigantic beyond comprehension – and he had once thought it was made of solid rock!

Leaving the astronomy book open on the table before him, Chimal leaned back and stretched, then rubbed at the soreness around his eyes. He had brought a thermos of tea with him and he poured a cup and sipped at it. The book had fallen open to a plate of the Great Nebula in Andromeda, a gigantic wheel of light against the star-pricked night. Stars. There was one star he should be interested in, the one he had been welcomed to when the process of education began. What was its name? – there were so many new things to remember – Proxima Centauri. It would still be far ahead, but he had a sudden desire to see the destination of his captive universe. There were detailed star charts of the sky, he had seen them, so it should not be too hard to pick out this individual star. And he could stretch his legs: his body ached from unaccustomed sitting for so many hours at a time.

It was a relief to walk briskly again, even run a few paces down the long passageway. How many days had it been since he had first entered the observation room? Memory fogged; he had kept no record. Maybe he should carry a deus like the others, but that was a bloody and painful way to mark the passing of a day. This rite seemed senseless to. him, like so much of the Watchers’ activities, but it was important to them. They seemed to actually enjoy this ritual infliction of pain. Once more he pushed open the massive doors and looked out at interstellar space, as boldly impressive as the first time he had seen it.

Matching the stars to the chart was difficult. For one thing the stars did not remain in relatively fixed positions as they did in the sky above the valley, but instead swept by in majestic parade. In a few minutes the cycle would go from summer to winter constellations and back again. As soon as he thought he had plotted a constellation it would vanish from sight and new stars would appear. When the Master Observer came in he was grateful for the interruption.

“I regret having to bother you…”

“No, not at all, I’m getting nowhere with this chart and it only makes my head ache more.”

“Then, might I ask you to aid us?”

“Of course. What is it?”

“You will see at once if you will accompany me.”

The Master Observer’s face was pulled into deeper lines of brooding seriousness: Chimal had not thought this was possible. When he tried to make conversation he received courteous but brief answers. Something was bothering the old man, and just what it was he would find out shortly.

They went downstairs to a level that Chimal had never visited and found a car waiting for them. It was a long ride, longer than he had ever taken before, and it was made in silence. Chimal looked at the walls moving steadily by and asked, “Are we going far?”

The Master Observer nodded. “Yes, to the stern, near the engine room.”

Though Chimal had studied diagrams of their world, he still thought of it in relation to his valley. What they called the bow was where the observation room was, well beyond the swamp. The stern, then, was south of the waterfall, at the end of the valley. He wondered what they would find there.

They stopped at another tunnel opening and the Master Observer led the way to one of a number of identical doorways, outside of which was waiting a red-garbed observer. Silently, he opened the door for them. Inside was a sleeping cell. A man in Watcher’s black was hanging from a rope that had been passed through the bar of the air vent in the ceiling. The loop of rope about his neck had choked him to death, slowly and painfully, rather than snapping his spine, but in the end it had done its job. He must have been hanging for days because his body had stretched so that his toes almost touched the floor, next to the overturned chair that he had jumped from. The observers turned away, but Chimal, no stranger to death, looked on calmly enough.

“What do you want me to do?” Chimal asked. For a moment he wondered if he had been brought as a burial party.

“He was the Air Tender and he worked alone because the Master Air Tender died recently and a new one has not been appointed as yet. His breviary is there on the desk. There seems to be something wrong and he was unable to correct it. He was a foolish man and instead of reporting it he took his own life.”

Chimal picked up the well-thumbed and grease-stained book and flipped through it. There were pages of diagrams, charts for entering readings, and simple lists of instructions to be followed. He wondered what had troubled the man. The Master Observer beckoned him into the next room where a buzzer sounded continuously and a red light flashed on and off.

“This is a warning that something is wrong. The Air Tender’s duty when the alarm sounds is to make the corrections at once, and then to make a written report to me. I received no such report.”

“And the alarm is still going. I have a strong suspicion that your man could not fix the trouble, panicked and killed himself.”

The Master Observer nodded in intensified gloom. “The same unharmonious thought is what came upon me when a report reached me that this had happened. I have been worried ever since the Master Air Tender was struck down in his youth, barely 110 years old, and this other one left in charge. The Master never thought well of him and we were preparing to train a new tender when this happened.”

Chimal suddenly realized what this meant “Then you have nobody who knows anything about repairing this equipment? And it is the air machinery you are talking about, that supplies the breathing air for us all?”

“Yes,” the Master Observer said and led the way through thick, double-locked doors to a vast and echoing chamber.

Tall tanks lined the walls with shining apparatus at their bases. Heavy ducts dived down and there was an all-pervading hum and the whine of motors.

“This supplies the air for everyone?” Chimal asked.

“No, nothing like that. You will read about it there, but most of the air has something to do with green plants. There are great chambers of them in constant growth. This apparatus does other important things with the air, just what I am not sure.”

“I can’t promise that I’ll be able to help, but I’ll do my best At the same time I suggest you get whoever else might be able to work with this.”

“There is no one, of course. No man would think of doing other than his assigned work. I alone am responsible and I have looked at this book before. Many of the things are beyond me. I am an old man,, too old to learn a new discipline. A young man is now being taught the air tender’s craft, but it will be years before he is able to work in here. That may be too late.”

With a new weight of responsibility Chimal opened the book. The first part was an outline of air purification theory which he skimmed over quickly. He would read that in detail after he had a more general knowledge of the function of the machinery. Under apparatus there were 12 different sections, each headed with a large red number. These numbers were repeated on large signs down the wall and he assumed, with some justification, that they related to the numbers in the book. When he glanced up at them he noticed that a red light under 5 was blinking on and off. He walked over to it and saw the word emergency printed under the bulb: he opened the book to section 5.

“Purification Tower, Trace Pollutants. Many things such as machinery, paint and the breath of living people give off gaseous and particulate matter. There are not many of these pollutants, but they do collect over the years and can become concentrated. This machine removes from our air those certain fractions that may be dangerous after many, many years. Air is forced through a chemical that absorbs them…”

Chimal read on, interested now, until he had finished section 5. This tower seemed to be designed to function for centuries without attention; nevertheless provision had still been made to have it watched and monitored. There was a bank of instruments at its base and he went to look at them. Another light was flashing over a large dial, blinking letters that spelled out REPLACE CHEMICAL. Yet on the dial itself the reading was right at the top of the activity scale, just where the book said it should be for correct operation.

“But who am I to argue with this machine,” Chimal told the Master Observer, who had been following him in silence. “The recharging seems simple enough. There is an automatic cycle that the machine does when this button is depressed. If it doesn’t work the valves can be worked by hand. Let’s see what happens.” He pushed the button.

Operation lights flashed on, flickering in response to the cycle, and hidden switches closed. A muffled, sighing sound issued from the column before them and, at the same time the needle on the activity scale moved into the red danger zone, dropping toward the bottom. The Master Observer squinted at it, spelling out the letters with his lips, then looked up, horrified.

“Can this be right? It gets worse not better. Something terrible is happening.”

“I don’t think so,” Chimal said, frowning in concentration over the breviary. “It says the chemical needs replacing. So first I imagine the old chemical is pumped out, and this removal is what gives that false reading on the scale. Certainly the absence of a chemical will give the same reading as a bad chemical.”

“Your argument is abstract, hard to follow. I am glad you are here with us, First Arriver, and I can see the workings of the Great Designer in this. We could do nothing about this without you.”

“Let’s see how this comes out, first. So far I’ve just followed the book and there has been no real problem. There, the new chemical must be coming in, the needle’s going back up again to fully charged. That seems to be all there is to it.”

The Master Observer pointed, horrified, at the blinking warning light. “Yet – that goes on. There is something terrible here. There is something wrong with our air!”

“There is nothing wrong with our air. But there is something wrong with this machine. It has been recharged, the new chemical is working perfectly – yet the alarm goes on. The only thing I can think of is that there is something wrong with the alarm.” He slipped through the sections of the book until he found the one he wanted, then read through it quickly. “This may be it. Is there a storeroom here? I want something called 167-R.”

“It is this way.”

The storeroom contained rows of shelves, all numbered in order, and Chimal had no trouble locating part 167-R which was a sturdy cannister with a handle on the end and a warning message printed in red. CONTAINS PRESSURIZED GAS – POINT AWAY FROM FACE WHEN OPENING. He did as it advised and turned the handle. There was a loud hissing, and when it had died away the end came free in his hand. He reached in and drew out a glittering metal box, shaped like a large book. It had a handle where the spine would be and a number of copper-colored studs on the opposite edge. He had not the slightest idea what its function might be.

“Now let’s see what this does.”

The breviary directed him to the right spot and he found the handle in the face of the machine that was marked 167-R, as was the new one he had just obtained. When he pulled on the handle the container slid out as easily as a book from a shelf. He threw it aside and inserted the new part in its place.

“The light is gone, the emergency is over,” the Master Observer called out in a voice cracking with emotion. “You have succeeded even where the Air Tender failed.”

Chimal picked up the discarded part and wondered what had broken inside it. “It seemed obvious enough. The machinery appeared to work fine, so the trouble had to be in the alarm circuit, here. It’s described in the book, in the right section. Something turned on and would not turn off, so the emergency sounded even after the correction had been made. The tender should have seen that.”