Polymath (7 page)

“You mean that literally?”

“Can you imagine Del settling for half-measures? Oh, she isn’t the only one! I mean, one realizes it’s part of human nature, and all of us being cooped up together like that….But for Del it’s nothing more than a stopgap.” She caught herself, then gave a sour chuckle. “Yes, that’s a very apt term! She does have some signs of a conscience, I must admit. I mean, she hasn’t just thrown Naline aside now the winter’s over and there’s a chance to sneak off in the woods with men again. But Naline is just clinging on by a hair now, and sooner or later she’s going to have a terrible shock when Del starts parading around with a man she prefers.”

Frowning, Lex said, “You don’t think she’s found him already?”

“Her pregnancy? Oh, she’s probably been dragging the nearest man up the hill twice a day since it got warm enough to lie down without frostbite. Trying all of them in turn.”

It crossed Lex’s mind that if that were true then Delvia was making a better adjustment to the realities of their new home than Oraelle, or indeed practically anybody else.

“Well, you’ve explained the problem,” he said. “But I don’t see what I can do.”

“Don’t you?” Ornelle moved closer and put her hand on his arm. “Lex, I don’t think I could ask any other of the single men to do it, but you seem more self-possessed and sensible than the rest of them. Somebody’s got to cushion the shock for Naline. At that age she doesn’t have fully-developed emotions—she’s still at the hero-worship stage. I’m sure that’s what’s hung her up on Del. She needs to have some attention paid to her, some encouragement, some—well, maybe some affection.”

As though embarrassed at having come so close to saying outright she wanted Naline seduced, she interrupted
herself. “You didn’t have any parallel problems on the men’s side, did you?”

“Ah… I guess not. All of us are quite a bit older than Naline. All sort of—ah—settled for life in their personal orientation. If young Bendle hadn’t died, perhaps then things might have been different. But all we had was a couple of fights when we got sick of being shut in by the snow.”

“A couple!” Ornelle snorted. “We had a couple a day—or that’s what it felt like. But… What do you think, Lex?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. He was working a calculation in his head, not cynically, just assessing facts. There was a slight majority of women now; marginally hardier than men, they had lost seven to the males’ fourteen and fewer of them were falling sick. On the other hand you had to consider the question of their breeding ability…

His mind revolted. He wasn’t trained to that peak of detachment, though he knew it was required of polymaths when they took up their ultimate posts. He couldn’t think of the potential advantage of having the youngest girl in the group as his wife, because of her longer fertile future.

“Sorry,” he said, and had to lick his lips. “I can’t.”

“Very well.” She sighed. “I didn’t know you already had a girl, but—”

“I don’t. I don’t even have my eye on one. But there’s a point of principle. Our survival here may ultimately depend on honesty, facing the facts as they are. The repercussions of acting a lie, as you’ve suggested, could be disastrous. No matter how unselfish the underlying motive is. Good night, Ornelle.”

All the way back to the single men’s house he was trying to decide whether, true or not, he should have said that.

There were only about half a dozen men in the house, chatting among themselves; the rest were out, a few working, most relaxing.

He couldn’t help wondering whether one of them was with Delvia.

“What do you think, Lex?” Jerode said. He was visibly tense as the members of the general assembly gathered—everyone who had survived the winter, the poisons, the sickness, the cold—to take stock of their situation and hear what the steering committee recommended.

Standing in the shadow of the headquarters hut, watching the way people were grouping themselves as they sat on the gently rising ground and trying to read implications into their choice of near neighbors, Lex shook his head.

“I think Ornelle may have been only too right,” he said.

“So do I.” Jerode tapped a sheaf of documents in his hand. “We made out this list of priority jobs. I was wondering whether we ought not to have drawn up an assignment list, too, naming everyone.”

“Why didn’t you suggest it?”

“One: it’s the kind of thing I’ve been relying on Arbogast to handle. It comes more readily to a ship’s captain to think of duty rosters and suchlike. Two: it seems to me better to build around a nucleus of volunteers for every job, and either rely on them to invite capable assistance from the others, or shame the ones who hang back into finding work wherever they’re needed.”

“Sounds shrewd,” Lex said.

“I did right, then?” Jerode sounded hungry for the answer.

“Doc, don’t look to me,” Lex said with some annoyance. “Everything’s new here. We’ll have to see if it works; if it doesn’t, try something different. Now I wonder”—his voice dropped as his eyes roamed the growing crowd—“why Rothers is keeping those vacant spaces near the front. You know him, the man who used to be on the spaceport computing staff? Ah, of course. That must be it.”

“What?” Jerode blinked at him.

“Manager Nanseltine and his wife aren’t here yet. Nor is Delvia, come to that. The ones with rank hung over from home, and I much suspect the one who’s going to acquire some here. By pecking order methods. Here they come.”

Heads turned in the seated crowd. Arbogast was approaching, and with him, talking volubly, tall stout Nanseltine and his florid graying wife. The captain clearly was taking no notice, just enduring what was said.

“How did Nanseltine manage to retain so much flesh during the winter?” Jerode muttered.

“The rest of us lost some of it by sweating it off, not just by going hungry,” Lex replied. “There’s an exception.”

“Yes, I guess so…. Well, here we go.” Jerode sighed, and moved to welcome the captain.

The first fuss was over chairs for the Nanseltines. Two had been set on the verandah of the headquarters hut for Arbogast and Jerode—no one objected to these two being privileged—but everyone else was agreeable to using the ground. Then people behind the chairs which were brought for the Nanseltines complained their view was blocked, and a minor argument developed. Arbogast made no attempt to quiet it, simply sat staring at nothing.

That wasn’t altogether without advantages, Lex thought. Leaning against the corner of the hut, careful not to dislodge any of its timbers, he studied the faces of the crowd. Yes, there were factions. On the useful side, those like Cheffy, Aldric, possibly Delvia: willing to face reality and work hard. Many of them were ringed around Bendle, with pens and scraps of “paper” ready to take notes. Others were grouped close to Fritch; these were members of his building team. Not for the first time Lex was grateful for the statistical accident which had produced a majority of people under forty and yet so few children. Of course, that had been due to the season. Nine out of every ten children in Zara’s northern hemisphere had been on life-adaptation courses away from home at the time of the disaster.

Now Naline was the baby of them all, at sixteen. Bendle’s son had been a few months younger, and there had been four infants. But they had all succumbed to a lung infection….

Present, not past, he reminded himself sternly. On the useless side then—no, correction: the less useful side,
because everyone here had to count—the Nanseltines and their cronies; you could spot them now, the ones complaining because they didn’t have chairs too or because they didn’t see why the Nanseltines should when they didn’t. Also the fawners, like Rothers, of whom a cluster centered on Nanseltine’s wife, saying of
course
MANAGER Nanseltine should have a chair.

And in the middle of these categories, almost half the total number: category undecided.

The arguments ended when Cheffy, with his characteristic tact, suggested moving the chairs to one side of the crowd where they would obstruct no one’s view. With a sigh of relief Jerode turned to Arbogast. An expectant hush fell.

Slowly Arbogast drew himself to his feet. He looked dreadfully old, as though the past day had aged him fifty years. But his voice was firm, and carried across the crowd.

He said, “Fellow… castaways! Up till now you have in a sense been—well, under my command. I have not objected. In space, and directly following our arrival, I was fitted for it, I think. But all I know is space and spaceships. On a planet’s surface, I think it better for everyone if I relinquish this unenviable position to someone suited to the new circumstances.”

Lex looked at Nanseltine to see if he realized what was coming. Nanseltine didn’t react, but his wife did.

The corners of Lex’s mouth turned down sharply.
Might have guessed….

“I propose therefore,” Arbogast went on, “that this assembly should be presided over by someone we all respect and admire for his invaluable work. Dr. Jerode, will you…?”

He made a quick flourish; then he picked up his chair and carried it to the side of the crowd distant from Nanseltine. Finally catching on, the latter looked startled—and his wife, furious. A buzz of comment rose and faded.

Jerode looked at Lex and shrugged. He tinned and called across the crowd, “Is that acceptable?”

There was a ripple of applause.

“Very well, then.” The doctor shuffled his notes. “As you know, our position has much improved in spite of…”

When Jerode got around to describing the urgent work ahead, Lex was able to sort a great many more of the crowd into their respective categories. The useful ones frowned, hut were cheered by realizing what a well-planned program had been devised. The less-than-useful also frowned, then gave up listening and began to mutter restively among themselves. Still, there was no real trouble until Fritch finished talking about work on the accomodation. Nobody was minded to object to improving their living conditions.

But then Bendle talked about possible new food supplies, and went on at great length and with a lot of jargon, and people fretted visibly. Jerode’s voice shook when he rose to call on Aldric next, to discuss water supplies, the manufacture of tools, and other technical matters.

“The ship!” someone cried at the back of the crowd. “Hey, what about the ship?”

“Yes! Yes!” Twenty voices shouted agreement, and a pattern of nods made heads wave like grass under wind. Jerode, uncertain, stood blinking, and Aldric—on his feet to approach the verandah—hesitated with his notes in his hand.

“Very well,” the doctor said at last. “If it’s your wish I’ll call on Lex, who visited the ship yesterday.”

The useless ones were the ones who applauded now. The others only came alert. Lex unfolded his long legs and made the one step up to take station beside Jerode.

“The ship,” he said in a clear, penetrating voice, “is about one-third under mud, about one-third under water. Salt water. A highly corrosive liquid. I entered it through an open cargo lock”—his eyes flicked to Arbogast, who winced, but he had to rub in the facts—“and found that when it rolled over, everything unsecured was smashed. What was not broken by being flung against the wall or ceiling is in unsalvageable condition. At least two explosions occurred in the fuel-reserve room and shattered most of the drive gear. Sand and mud—hundreds of tons of it—have sifted inside. Sea-creatures and weed have taken possession. This is exactly what we were expecting.”

He paused, assessing the impact of what he was saying.

“Accordingly,” he resumed, “the best we can make of the ship from now on is a stockpile of metal and other raw materials. And it isn’t going to be easy to get at it, either. We’ll have to develop some way of powering cutting-tools under water, means of floating large pieces
back to shore—rafts, maybe—and solve other problems which will take so much time I can’t recommend them for immediate attention. All I can recommend right now is stripping out loose fragments that can be brought back in the boat.”

He glanced at Jerode. “I think that’s all I can say.”

“Thank you, Lex. As you said, I think we expected the substance of your report. Now we’ll hear Aldric, and—”

“Just a moment!” That was Rothers, sitting beside the Nanseltines, having moved when they shifted their chairs. Lex glanced his way. Nanseltine’s wife was speaking urgently to her husband and several people nearby were nodding vigorously. Now, ponderous, Nanseltine got up.

“Who went over the ship?” he demanded, setting his shoulders back. “No one but you?”

“That’s correct,” Lex said, climbing back on the verandah.

“No one but you!” Old mannerisms were returning to Nanseltine, that was obvious. “Are we to take it, then, that this—this defeatist view is based exclusively on your inexpert observations?”

“You’re welcome to put on a suit and come down with me to see for yourself. I think we might find one to fit you.” Lex weighted the words with deliberate sarcasm.

“Don’t descend to personal insult, young man!” Nanseltine glowered, while those of the crowd who hadn’t got Lex’s point at once got it now and smiled regardless of which side they were on. Meantime, the former continental manager continued, “What I, and a lot of other people here, want to know, is why we don’t have the expert opinion of a spaceman instead of this—this amateur evaluation.”

There was silence. Someone whispered, “Which spaceman?” The words carried, and Arbogast heard. With dignity, head erect, the old man—suddenly it was natural to think of him by that term—rose and faced Nanseltine.

“Manager Nanseltine!” he said. “Perhaps you’re not aware of the condition of the
spacemen
among us! You seem aware of rather little of what’s going on here!”

A ragged cheer commented on the rebuke.

“I had four men in my crew! One had his skull cracked by a bale of goods that fell on him while we were clearing our holds to make room for you people! One is present, who had to have a leg amputated after frostbite. One was trying to inspect the ropewalk across the river in
a gate, lost his grip, and fell into the water. No doubt he was swept out to sea and drowned. And one was on ground leave on Zara. That leaves myself, and Lex, who volunteered to work under me during our flight and in whom I, if not you, repose some confidence as a result.