Worlds Apart (10 page)

"That's the trouble with you old folk," said Rog a little impatiently. "You've got war on the brain. War and atomic power. Who gives a damn about atomic power? Not us -- you. And war -- what do I know about war? What good would a war do?

"No. I'm getting out. And taking about half Lemon with me. Including Alice. She's going to marry Fred Mitchell."

He rose easily. Bentley started up too. "Wait a minute. Let me get this. Alice is going to marry Fred Mitchell? But she can't. They're both -- "

"She can," said Rog, "in my town."

He was calculating coolly. Perhaps very soon he was going to look very silly. He had planned to start a community in New Paris, some time in the future, of young Mundans who were prepared to follow him. But he had mentioned it to no one, not even Alice. He had talked to Bentley as he did merely because he trusted his own talent for knowing the right moment -- it had seemed right to talk as he did, when he did.

Which was all very well, but suppose Dick, Alice, Fred, Ruby, Jim, Abner, Frances, and all the rest said. "You can go and live in New Paris if you like -- we're staying here"?

He shook off Bentley's hand. "What more is there to say?" he asked. "You're not the Council. You're not even the President. I wish you were."

"Have you thought about this?" Bentley insisted. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"I've thought about it for months. That was why I sent Pertwee away with Toni."

"You . . . " Bentley gasped.

"He would have cqmplicated the issue. He understands action. He's the only one among you who does."

He moved away, then turned for one last word. "Can't you see," he asked, ringing confidence and sincerity in his voice. "how necessary it is for someone, something, to put a little life into this community? Things don't stand still -- if you're not going forward, you shouldn't be surprised if you find yourself slipping back. We've become vegetables. We've taken root in Lemon. 'No change!' is the cry. The Inner Council say 'No change' to everything and calls that government. Government! Any settlement is only as good as its government. And ours is dead!"

He left Bentley staring.

IV

1

Rog called a mass meeting and spoke to it, for the most part, quietly and rationally. There was a certain amount of purely emotional appeal, of course; Rog couldn't have been entirely undramatic if he tried. But on the whole he invited rational agreement, not fanatical devotion to himself or to a cause. He didn't really stampede his supporters into anything. He made sure that if they followed him it was because in general they agreed with him, and could be relied on to continue to agree with him.

He stood on the dais at the sports ground, and talked quietly so that his audience had to be quiet too to hear him. Not many people could have got silence. Jessie Bendall, John Pertwee might; Alice, possibly, if she had something to say. Rog got the attention he wanted. He always did. He had the kind of soft voice that could cut through the shouts of others.

"Let's get this straight," he said. "We're not starting a fight. Anybody here who wants a fight can have one now, with the rest of us. You, Abner?"

Abner Carliss was small and bright and quick in his movements, like a bird. No one ever knew quite what he would do. He could be a small whirlwind, quick to take offense and as quick to apologize; and he could also be placid and good-humored, like a miniature Brad Hulton. When Rog marred June, Abner might have looked for him in fury, incoherence, and mad jealousy. Quite a few people had thought he would. But Abner hadn't said or done anything. He hadn't congratulated Rog or June, didn't seek them out, didn't avoid them, accepted their marriage as casually as he would have accepted anyone else's.

"Hell, no," said Abner. "I couldn't fight more than half of you."

"You, Fred?"

"Oh, whatever you say, Rog," said Fred equably.

"Just what," asked Ruby Pertwee, "are we doing? /If/ we do anything, which I don't regard as settled yet."

Of all Pertwee's children, only Ruby showed any independence of thought. Rog turned all his attention on her. Ruby was always a good weathercock. If she regarded a thing as sound, a lot of people would think it was sound too -- probably it /was/ sound.

"We are showing all Lemon," said Rog carefully, "including ourselves, precisely what value a Constitution has which none of us ever had a chance to make or break. Laws are handed down, yes, but laws can be changed. The Constitution is handed. down too, but when is it going to be changed? Never, so long as it needs a three-quarter majority. We're not changing it now -- only showing what value it has, how applicable it is to present circumstances, if half the people in Lemon decide not to fight it but sidestep it . . . "

He had to state that more simply, several times; but he didn't really have to argue. The attitude of most of the young Mundans there -- nearly two hundred of them, with more streaming in every moment, and asking those on the outskirts what had been going on -- was that they might as well go along too, if Rog had all the support he appeared to have.

Rog glossed over the question of how long the demonstration would last. Several people asked "How long?" taking it for granted that it was a temporary move, as a gesture. Rog admitted that. They would come back to Lemon some time, almost certainly, but he couldn't prophesy at present when the psychological moment would be.

He didn't admit that.

After the talking was over, Rog practically led the meeting straight out to New Paris. There was no organized opposition from the other party, for there was no other party. It was organization -- impromptu, perhaps, and extremely loose -- against no organization. All that anyone could produce, at that time, in disagreement, was a suggestion that they should wait and talk things over quietly and not do anything in a hurry. To this Rog replied with a certain limited amount of justice that this was what had been going on for twenty years.

The people who were most doubtful were those who counted as his closest allies, He had known Alice wouldn't be entirely enthusiastic, but would come along. She was slightly more enthusiastic than he had expected, perhaps because she had feared when he did anything it would be more drastic. Dick didn't like it, of course, but came along, also of course. Fred was glad to support anything which would give him Alice: Abner Carliss said nothing; he merely nodded and came along.

For June there was no question. Rog must be right. Nothing else was possible.

"You won't always think that," he told her, as they packed a few things.

She looked at him inquiringiy.

"Sooner or later," he told her, "you're going to start thinking for yourself."

She blushed, "That's not fair," she said. She tried to hide it, but she was hurt.

Rog looked at her thoughtfully. When something proved afresh how much he meant to her, he was always a little surprised. He looked for reasons for things, and he could see few reasons for this. If he could once have explained it to himself, it would cease to be a constant puzzle, something he didn't include in his more general calculations because he didn't know what to include.

He held out his arms, and she threw herself into them, passionately. He felt her heart race against his. He always touched her gently, tentatively, as if unsure of his right to touch her at all. She lifted her feet from the floor, her arms still about his neck, and he scarcely had to brace himself to support her weight.

Abruptly he dropped her on the bed and stood gazing at her.

"What's the matter?" she asked anxiously.

He dropped beside her. "I want to do what's right for you, June," he murmured. He found his head in her lap without any clear idea of how it got there. Her hands smoothed his hair.

He wanted to love her, and was afraid to love her. It was giving a hostage to fate, letting a woman mean so much to him. Rog Foley gave no hostages.

He heard the door open and tensed to jump up. Then a certain peace came over him. Let them see. Hostage to fate? Every promise, every plan, every hope was a hostage to fate.

"We're ready," said Alice's voice. It was strangely subdued. He raised his head reluctantly. There was something in Alice's eyes that he had never seen before.

With Rog and June and Alice at the head, the column moved through Lemon, growing.

Jessie Bendall wanted to speak to Rog. He dropped out, waving the others on.

"Tell me," she said. "Is this a demonstration -- or a revolt?"

"Neither, really," he said. "But call it a demonstration if you like. Relax, Mrs. Bendall. There isn't going to be any trouble."

She had been angry, grim. But she was losing her confidence in the face of his unconcern.

"What do you want us to do?" she asked, a harassed woman of fifty-four rather than the President of probably all that was left of the human race.

"Nothing -- do you feel you ought to do something?"

In ten seconds they had reached agreement on the true situation. Rog was in command. The destiny of Lemon was in his hands.

"It was inevitable, I suppose," she murmured. "Is this a final split?"

"No. We'll be back for Council meetings -- for everything. Is that all?"

He moved on. He had been polite, as ever, his manner more pleasant and cordial than his words.

It wasn't a demonstration or a revolt -- it was a coup. The kind of thing which, back on Earth, had come when a group or a party or a nation had gone as far along a track as it could go, and if there couldn't be a change for the better it had to be a change for the worse. The man to stage the coup, had always been there -- comes the hour, comes the man.

Alice gave him a wry smile as Rog caught up with her and June.

"June thinks you're right, anyway," she said.

"It isn't a question of being right," Rog told her. "Perhaps it's a question of being less wrong. I'm not sure."

He began to whistle softly.

"You can afford to whisfie," muttered Alice, rather nastily for her.

Suddenly Rog realized what had been in her eyes when she had burst in on him and June. She had seen what she hadn't previously believed -- that in addition to everything else, Rog had won love, too.

What had been in her eyes was envy.

2

Things worked out well at New Paris. There was plenty to be done, yet not so much urgency about shy of it that work need become toil. Rog kept his followers on the right road without giving any impression of driving them, and delivered justice, where necessary, with wisdom and good humor.

"In fact," Alice remarked at the end of the fourth day, "I think a lot more of you than I did a week ago, Rog. I'm just waiting for you to show the cloven hoof."

"I wonder why everyone's determined I've got one?" Rog inquired.

"Not everyone," said June.

Rog put his arm round her shoulders. "No, honey," he said. "You're not. But everyone else."

"I think I know why it is," said Alice. "Because you are ruthless, Rog. One can feel that. You're cold. You don't emote. You're not sympathetic. You -- "

"Alice." said June warmly, "you're talking utter rubbish. Rog's not like that at all. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Maybe I don't," Alice admitted, but without conviction.

On the fifth day they saw the ship.

It was natural enough that they should see without being seen, though there was a close watch aboard the ship and none in New Paris. For Lemon was hidden in the valley, the ship was never closer than ten miles and New Paris, long deserted, overgrown, was entirely green and brown, like the surrounding territory. On the other hand the great silver ship showed up in the sky like the finger of destiny it was.

Dick saw it first, when he was washing at the well. The most self-conscious individual of either sex on Mundis, Dick dashed into the square, naked, shouting and pointing. Everyone in New Paris saw it. Even at that distance they could see, those of them who were old enough to remember, that it was another Mundis.

They were excited and pleased. No one was overjoyed; everyone there had been born on Mundis and regarded the planet as his own. They wanted to develop it themselves, and to that extent the arrival of another ship was not entirely welcome. From the first, there were mixed feelings about it.

But it was certainly an event, the arrival of another ship.

The more imaginative among them realized at once some of the things it would mean. . . .

Competition. The Mundans might be two groups, might have had their disagreements and split, but whenever this ship appeared it was obvious that it was one for all on Mundis. Whenever contact was made with the second ship it would be Mundan against Terran, in friendly rivalry perhaps, but rivalry.

New people. Lemon was still so small that there was no question of anyone ever meeting anyone he didn't know, and know well. No young Mundan had ever met anyone, young or old, he had not known since childhood -- the childhood of one or both of them. The nearest one could come to meeting someone new had been Rog's recognition of June, after knowing her all her life.

New experience. Different things must have happened to the people on the second ship, whoever they were and wherever they had come from. They would act differently, and the knowledge and experience and reality of everyone on Mundis would be different, enlarged and complicated, for their presence.

The ship moved towards the north, and had clearly seen nothing of Lemon or New Paris. Someone -- Fred Mitchell -- dashed towards the vacant huts at the other end of the village, with the obvious intention of firing one and attracting the attention of someone on the ship.

"Stop, Fred!" Rog shouted. "Come back here!"

"I'm just going to -- "

"I know what you're just going to. Don't do it. Come here."

Fred came back reluctantly, looking over his shoulder at the receding ship.

"Look, Rog," he said protestingly, "even if they're combing Mundis looking for us they may never come in sight of us again. They may think we never got here, or died off or something."

"Perhaps," said Rog. He looked around, saw a mound that would give him an extra two feet of height and jumped on it. Everyone gathered about him.