Perchevski shuffled from foot to foot. He was too nervous to
sit. He had not realized that going home would unleash so much
emotion.
He glanced around the lounge. The lighter would be carrying a
full load. Tourists and business people. The former were mostly
Ulantonid and Toke. They huddled in racial clumps, intimidated by
Old Earth’s xenophobic reputation, yet determined to explore
the birth world of Man. The Toke nerved themselves with bold talk.
Their every little quirk or gesture seemed to proclaim, “We
are the Mel-Tan Star Warriors of the Marine Toke Legion. We are the
Chosen of the Star Lords. The delinquents of a decadent world
cannot frighten us.”
But they were scared.
No enemy could intimidate the Toke. The Toke War had proven
that. Only the stroke of diplomatic genius that had made a place
for them in Service, and a place for Toke in Confederation, as
equals, had saved the Warrior Caste from extinction. It’s a pity we can’t work something like that for
the Sangaree, Perchevski thought.
But there had been no hatred in the Toke War. It had been an
almost clinically unemotional contest for supremacy in the star
ranges of the Palisarian Directorate.
The Ulantonid were less bellicose than the Toke. Their war with
Confederation had been unemotional too. Another blood-flavored
wrestling match for supremacy.
These looked like a Catholic group headed for Rome, Jerusalem,
and Bethlehem.
“Shuttle Bravo Tango Romeo Three One is now ready
for boarding for passengers making a Lake Constance descent.
Passengers for Corporation Zone will please assemble at Shuttle Bay
Nine.”
“I’d like to meet her,” said a stranger near
Perchevski.
“Who’s that?”
“The woman who does the announcing. She can put her shoes
under my bed anytime.”
“Oh. The voice.” It had been a soothing, mellow, yet
suggestive voice. Similar voices did the announcing in every
terminal Perchevski had ever visited.
The tourists and business people boarded first. Luna Command
made a habit of doing little things that avoided irritating
civilians. The individual Serviceman was supposed to remain
unobtrusive.
Only one check on Luna Command’s power existed. The
operating appropriation voted by a popularly elected senate.
The Toke Marines stood aside for Perchevski, who had come in his
Commander’s uniform.
It was a long, lazy twelve-hour orbit to Lake Constance and
Geneva. Perchevski read, slept, and pondered the story he had
recently begun. He tried not to think about the world below.
The holonets could not begin to portray the squalid reality that
was Old Earth beyond the embattled walls of Corporation Zone.
The shuttle dropped into the lake. A tug guided it into a berth.
Perchevski followed the civilians into the air of his native world.
He had come home. After eight years.
Geneva had not changed. Switzerland remained unspoiled. Its
wealth and beauty seemed to give the lie to all the horror stories
about Old Earth.
It was a mask. Offworld billions cosmeticized the Zone, and
Corporation police forces maintained its sanctity at gunpoint. The
perimeters were in a continuous state of siege.
There were times when Luna Command had to send down Marines to
back the Corporation defense forces. The excuse was protection of
Confederation’s Senate and offices, which were scattered
between Geneva, Zurich, and the south shore of the Bodensee.
Once there had been a social theory claiming that the wealth
coming into the Zone from the Corporations headquartered there
would eventually spread across the planet. A positive balance of
trade would be created. And the positive example of life in the
Zone would act as a counter-infection to the social diseases of the
rest of the planet. Change would radiate from Switzerland like
ripples in a pond.
The theory had been stillborn, as so many social engineering
schemes are. No one here gives a damn, Perchevski reflected as he entered his
hotel room. All that kept Earth going was trillions in
interplanetary welfare. Maybe the whole thing should be allowed to
collapse, then something could be done for the survivors.
The motherworld’s people still played their games of
nationalism and warfare. They loved their Joshua Jas. And they
flatly refused to do anything for themselves while Confederation
could be shamed into paying support.
The too often told tale of welfarism was repeating itself. As
always, provision of means for improvement had become an
overpowering disincentive to action.
Perchevski spent his first day at home doing one of the guided
tours of the wonders of Corporation Zone. With his group were a few
native youngsters who had been awarded the tour as contest
prizes.
They surprised him. They were reasonably well-behaved,
moderately clean, and not too badly dressed. A cut above the
average run, and not unlike kids elsewhere. The Security guard was
not called upon to practice his trade.
The tour group lunched in the restaurant at the Nureyev
Technical Industries chalet atop the Matterhorn.
“Excuse me, Commander.”
Perchevski looked up from his sausage and kraut, startled. A
girl of sixteen, a tall, attractive blonde, stood opposite him. He
was eating alone. His uniform had put off everyone but two Toke
Marines, who were still trying to explain their need to a cook who
was appalled at the idea of permitting raw meat out of his kitchen.
He suspected the Marines wanted to stay near him for a feeling of
added security. The Toke were a strongly hierarchical people, and
among them warriors were the most respected of castes.
“Yes?”
“May I sit here?”
“Of course.” He was stunned. She was one of the
prize winners. Most Old Earthers so hated the Services that even
the best intentioned could not remain polite.
Is she a prostitute? he wondered.
Whatever her pitch, she needed time. She was so nervous she
could not eat.
She suddenly blurted, “You’re Old Earth,
aren’t you? I mean originally.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“The way you look at things. Outworlders look at things
different. Like they’re afraid they’ll catch something,
or something.”
Perchevski glanced at the other prize winners. Disgust marked
their faces. “Your friends
don’t . . . ”
“They’re not my friends. I never saw any of them
before yesterday. How did you get out?” Words tumbled out of
her all strung together, so fast he could hardly follow them.
“Out?”
“Of this. This place. This world.”
“I took the
Academy exams. They accepted me.”
“They didn’t stop you?”
“Who?”
“Your friends. The people you knew. I tried three times.
Somebody always found out and kept me from going. Last time three
men stopped me outside the center and said they’d kill me if
I went in.”
“So there’s still hope,” Perchevski murmured.
He knew what she wanted now.
“Sir?”
“I mean, as long as there’s somebody like you left,
Old Earth isn’t dead. You’ve made my trip
worthwhile.”
“Get me out. Can you get me out? Anything is better than
this. I’ll do anything. Anything you want.”
She meant it. Her desperate promise was so obvious it hurt.
He remembered his own desperation at an even younger age. When
you chose the unpopular path you had to cleave to it with fanatical
determination. He was moved. Deeply.
“I entered every contest there ever was just so I could
get this far. I knew they wouldn’t keep me from coming here,
and I thought maybe I could find
somebody . . . ”
“But you were too scared to do anything when you got
here.”
“They were all outworlders.”
“You leave Earth, you won’t meet anyone else.
I’ve only run into two or three Earthmen in twenty
years.” He eyed the group with which the girl had been
traveling. The youths seemed to have caught the drift of her
appeal. They did not like it.
“I know. I’d get used to it.”
“Are you sure? . . . ”
Three young men drifted to the table. “This slut
don’t belong here, Spike.”
Perchevski smiled gently. “You just made fuck-up number
one, stud. Don’t get smoked.”
That startled them. One snarled, “You’ll shit in
your hand and carry it to China, Spike.”
“May I be of assistance, Commander?”
The Toke Marine dwarfed the three youths. Adam’s apples
bobbed.
“I don’t think so, Fire Cord. I’d say the
Banner is secure. The young men have said their piece. They were
just leaving.”
The Toke Major glared down. At two and a quarter meters and one
hundred thirty kilos he was a runt for a Star Warrior. His aide,
though, was the kind they put on recruiting pamphlets meant for
circulation through the Caste Lodges. He stood quietly behind his
officer, filled with that still, dread equanimity that made the
Star Warriors unnerving to even the most hardened human
Servicemen.
“’Go you silently, Children of the
Night,’” Perchevski quoted from an old song used as a
battle anthem by half the youth gangs on the planet. “You,
especially, talking head.”
The slang had not changed much. Unlike the Outworlds, Old Earth
had become locked into static patterns.
The youths understood. There had been a time when he had been
one of them.
They left, strutting with false bravura. Perchevski thought he
caught a glint of envy in the spokesman’s eye.
“Thank you, Fire Cord.” The Security man, busy
talking shit to a restaurant girl, had missed the encounter.
“We share the Banner, Commander. We will be
near.”
“Fire Cord?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t call them on their own ground.”
“This is my third visit, Commander.”
“Then you know.” He turned to the girl again, who
seemed petrified. The two huge, leathery-skinned Marines moved to
the nearest empty table.
The girl finally blurted, “Why did you come
back?”
“I don’t know. To remind myself? Looking for
something I left behind? Roots? I’m not sure. I wanted to see
my mother. It’s been eight years.”
“Oh.” She sounded envious. “I couldn’t
find out who my parents were. I never met anybody who did know. Not
my age, anyway.”
He smiled. “Do you have a name? After that scene,
you’d better stay close to me or the Marines. Well have to
call you something besides Hey Girl.”
“Greta. Helsung. From Hamburg. Are they real Star
Warriors?”
He laughed softly. “Don’t let them hear you ask a
question like that, Greta from Hamburg. They’re as real as
the stink in the sink. I’m Commander Perchevski. If you
don’t change your mind, I’ll take you to see somebody
when we get back to Geneva.”
“I won’t change it. Not after all the trouble I
had . . . ”
He peered at her intently. This was too breathtaking, too real,
too dream-come-true for her. She did not quite believe him. He
could almost hear her thinking he would use her, then dump
her.
The use temptation existed. She was fresh and beautiful.
“I mean it, Greta. And don’t be scared. You’re
young enough to be my daughter.”
“I’m not a child. I’m old
enough . . . ”
“I’m aware of that. I’m not young enough. Eat
your knockwurst. The meat came all the way from
Palisarius.”
“Oh, God! Really? I didn’t know what I was ordering.
I just asked for something that I didn’t know what it was.
Just for something different. They didn’t show any prices. It
must be awful expensive.” She looked around guiltily.
“So don’t waste it.” Then, “Price
doesn’t matter to most people who eat here. If they
couldn’t afford it, they wouldn’t come. Go on. Enjoy
yourself.”
Her tour expenses would be covered. Luna Command would pick up
the tab. The Services sponsored the contests that gave Zone
vacations as prizes. Some inspired social theorist had decided to
fish for Old Earth’s Gretas, for the one-in-a-million
children who had adventure in their genes and dreams in their
hearts.
The program was as successful as the normal recruiting
procedures. It gave interested youths a chance to escape peer
pressure. Computers watched and cross-checked the contest entries.
Undoubtedly, someone would have contacted Greta if she had not come
to him.
He eyed her and thanked heaven that someone out there still
cared.
He felt pretty good.
Greta remained nearby throughout the tour, milking him for every
detail about outside. Her former companions were not pleased, but
the Fire Cord was always too close for their nerve.
Terrorism was a popular Terran sport. Toke, though, refused to
be terrorized. They bashed heads. Their reputation did not make
them immune, but it did force the natives to respect them.
Perchevski took the girl to the Bureau’s front business
office that evening. “A potential recruit,” he told the
night desk man, who recognized him from a holo portrait that had
preceded him down. “Greta Helsung, from Hamburg. Treat her
right.”
“Of course, Commander. Miss? Will you take a seat? We can
get the paperwork started.”
“It’s that easy?” she asked Perchevski.
The desk man replied, “You’ll be sleeping on the
moon tomorrow night, Miss. Oh. Commander. You’re
leaving?”
“I have an eleven-thirty to Montreal.”
Greta looked at him in silent appeal.
“Will you sponsor, Commander?”
He knew he shouldn’t. It meant accepting legal and
quasi-parental responsibility. The Admiral would be
furious . . . “Of course. Where do I
print?” He offered his thumb.
“Here. Thank you.” Something buzzed. The desk man
glanced to one side, read something from a screen Perchevski could
not see. “Oh-oh.” He thumbed a print-lock. A drawer
popped open. He handed Perchevski a ring.
“Why?” It was a call ring. It would let him know if
the Bureau wanted him on the hurry up. It would give them a means
of following his movements, too.
“Word from the head office. Ready, Miss
Helsung?”
“Greta, I’ll see you in Academy.” He wrote a
number on a scrap of paper. “Keep this. Call it when you get
your barracks assignment.” He started to leave again.
“Commander?”
He turned. Soft young arms flung around his neck. Tears seeped
through his uniform. “Thank you.”
“Greta,” he whispered, “don’t be scared.
They’ll be good to you.”
They would. She would be treated like a princess till her
studies began.
“Good-bye. Be good.”
Four of the tour youths caught him outside. He had to break
one’s arm before they got the message. He was nearly late for
his flight. He had to wait to shift to civilian clothing till after
he had boarded the airbus.
North American Central Directorate showed his mother living at
the same St. Louis Zone address. He went without calling first,
afraid she might find some excuse for not seeing him. Though their
intentions were friendly enough, their few visits had been
tempestuous. She could never forgive him for “turning on his
own kind.”
The passage down the last light canyon was like a journey home
along an old route of despair.
The playgrounds of his childhood had not changed. Trash still
heaped them. Kid gangs still roamed them. Crudely written,
frequently misspelled obscenities obscured the unyielding plastic
walls. Future archaeologists might someday go carefully through
layer after layer of spray paint, reconstructing the aberrations of
generations of uneducated minds.
He labored to convince himself that this was not the totality of
Old Earth.
“Some of it’s worse,” he murmured. Then he
castigated himself for his bigotry.
Sure, most Terran humanity lived like animals. But not all.
There were enclaves where some pride, some care, some ambition
remained. There were native industries. Earth produced most of its
own food and necessities. And there were artists, writers, and men
of vision . . . They just got lost in the
barbarian horde. They formed an unnaturally small percentage of the
population.
Not only had risk-taking been drained from the gene pool, so had
a lot of talent and intelligence.
The average I.Q. on Old Earth ran twenty points below
Confederation mean.
Perchevski overtipped his driver. It was enough to convince the
man that he had conveyed some criminal kingpin. Crime was one
profession where a man could still win some respect.
His codes still opened the building’s doors. After all
these years. He was amazed.
It was another symptom of what had become of his motherworld.
Terror had become so ubiquitous that no one tried very hard to
resist anymore.
His mother was drunk. She snapped, “You’re not
Harold. Who the hell are you? Where’s Harold? Nobody comes
here but Harold.”
He looked past her into the space where he had spent most of his
childhood. Three meters by four, it was divided into three tiny
rooms. It had seemed bigger back then, even with his father living
at home.
He said nothing.
“Look, brother . . . Holy Christ!
It’s you. What the hell are you doing here?” She
sounded angry. “Don’t stand there looking. Get in here
before somebody burns us.”
He slipped past her, plopped himself down on the same little
couch that had been his boyhood bed.
The apartment had not changed. Only his mother had. For the
worse.
It was more than age and unrelenting poverty. It was a sliding
downhill from the inside.
She had begun to go to fat. Her personal habits had slipped. Her
hair had not been combed in days . . .
“Let me clean up. I just got outta bed.” She
vanished behind the movable screen that made a bedroom wall.
“What have you been doing?” she asked.
“Better I should ask you. I sent letters.” And hard
Outworlds currency. Neither had drawn any response.
“I never seem to get around to answering.”
At least she did not make outrageous excuses, like not being
able to pay a writer. He knew she took his missives to a reader.
She cared that much. But not enough to reply.
“I did write twice. Once right after you were here last
time, and two or three years ago, after your father was killed in
the Tanner Revolt. I didn’t care anymore, but I thought you
might.”
“He’s dead?”
“As a stone. He got hung up in the Revanchist Crusade.
They were getting pretty big. Then most of them got themselves
killed attacking Security Fortress.”
“I didn’t get the letter. I didn’t
know.” He had never heard of the Tanner Revolt or Revanchist
Crusade. He asked about them.
“They were going to turn things around. Bring back the
golden age, or something. Unite Earth and make it the center of the
galaxy. A lot of people think you Loonies were behind it. They say
the whole Archaicist tiling was started by your
meddling.”
Archaicism had had its infancy on Old Earth concurrent with his
own. If it had been more social engineering, the plan had
backfired. The motherworld had not been awakened by the glory that
was. It had merely found a new way to escape the reality of
now.
The romantic pasts were popular. Men liked playing empires.
Women liked glamour.
Men died when groups like Stahlhelm, SS Totenkopf, or Black
September ganged up on Irgun or Stern . . . The
smallest and most obscurely referenced groups were the most
dangerous.
The ladies seemed to prefer Regency Balls, French Courts, and
seraglio situations.
A search for uniqueness combined with the need for belonging had
driven people to probe the remotest corners of Earth’s
history.
During his flight he had watched a live newscast of a raid on
Mexico’s Aztec Revivatist Cult. The police attackers had
battled their way into the temple too late to save the
sacrifices.
Perchevski’s mother returned. She wore an outfit that
looked ridiculous on a woman her age. The blouse was see-through.
The skirt fell only to mid-thigh. He concealed his consternation.
No doubt this was her best.
“I don’t get into that kind of thing. Not my line. I
do know a few guys who make a hobby of trying to save this dump
from itself.”
She did not like his attitude. “What are you calling
yourself this time?”
“Perchevski. Cornelius Perchevski.” He stared at
her, and saw Greta forty years from now.
Unless . . . If the kid enlisted, he would feel
his own life-choice was justified. He would have rescued someone
from becoming this . . .
“What are you into?” he asked. “I don’t
recognize the period.”
“Beatles and Twiggy.”
“Eh?”
“Twentieth century. Seventh decade. Anglo-American, with
the beginning in England. One of the light periods.”
“Youth and no philosophy? I gathered that much, though
I’m not familiar with it.”
“It’s all the rage now. It’s so very outré. So
clish-clash with itself. So schizophrenic. You speak English,
don’t you?”
“We have to learn. Most of the First Expansion worlds have
some memory of it.”
“Why don’t you stop all that foolishness? All those
ugly Outsiders . . . You could do well teaching
English here. Everybody wants to learn.” Here we go, he thought. She’s picking up where she left
off eight years ago. It’ll only get worse.
Why did I come here? To punish myself for getting out of this
hell-hole?
She recognized the look on his face. “It’s news
time. Let’s see what’s happening.” She whistled a
few bars of a tune he did not recognize.
The editing was unbelievable. This Archaicist group had done
this. That one had done that. The Bay Bombers had beaten the Rat
Pack 21-19. There wasn’t a word about von Drachau, or
anything else offworld, except mention of a Russian basketball team
trouncing the touring team from Novgorod.
“Big deal,” he muttered. “Novgorod’s
gravity is seventy-three percent of Earth normal. They’d have
to play midgets for it to be fair.”
His mother flared up. She hated foreigners almost as much as she
hated Outworlders, but the Russians were, at least, good Old
Earthers who had had the sense to stay on the
mother-world . . .
He tuned her out, again wondering if he had a masochistic
streak.
Would she try to understand if he explained how much in the
middle he was? That Outworlders disliked Old Earthers just as much
as she loathed them? That he had to reconcile those attitudes both
within himself and with everyone he met?
He did not think she would help. He knew her cure. Give it up.
Come back home. To squalor and
hopelessness . . .
“Mother, I am what I am. I won’t change.
You’re wasting your time when you try. Why don’t we go
out somewhere? This place is depressing.”
“What’s wrong with it? Yes. All right. It’s a
little old. And I have the extra credit over S.I. basic to move.
But it’s so big . . . I like having all
this room to knock around in. I wouldn’t have that in a new
place.”
Perchevski groaned to himself. Now came the Mama Marx
self-criticism session during which she would confess all her
failings as a Social Insuree. Then she would segue into her
shortcoming as a mother, ultimately taking upon herself all
responsibility for his having gone wrong.
He shook his head sadly. In eight years she should have found a
new song. “Come on, Mother. We did this last time.
Let’s go somewhere. Let’s see something. Let’s do
something.”
She dithered. She fussed. It was getting dark out. Only rich Old
Earthers, who could afford the armor, went out after the sun went
down.
“Here,” he said, opening his bag. “I’ve
got my own house now. I brought some holos to show you.”
The pictures finally penetrated her façade.
“Tommy! It’s beautiful! Magnificent. You really are
doing all right, aren’t you?”
“Good enough.”
“But you’re not happy. A mother can tell.” Holy shit, he thought. I’m grown up twice over. I
don’t need that. “You could live there if you
wanted.”
She became suspicious immediately. “It’s not in some
foreign place, is it? Those mountains don’t look like the
Rockies or Sierras.”
“It’s on a world called Refuge.”
“Omigod! Don’t do that! Don’t talk that way.
My heart . . . Did I tell you that the medics
say I have a weak heart?”
“Every time you’ve ever needed an excuse
for . . . ” He stopped himself. He
refused to start the fight.
“Let’s don’t fight, Tommy. We should be
friends. Oh. Speaking of friends. Patrick was killed just last
week. He went out after dark. It was so sad. Nobody can figure out
what made him do it.”
“Patrick?”
“That red-haired boy you were friends with the year before
you . . . You enlisted. I think his last name
was Medich. He was living with his mother.”
He didn’t remember a Patrick, red-haired, Medich, or
otherwise.
He did not belong here. Even the memories were gone. He had
changed. The kid who had lived with this woman was dead. He was an
impostor pretending to be her son.
She was bravely playing the game, trying to be his mother. He
was sure there were other things she would rather be doing.
Hadn’t she been expecting a Harold?
Maybe that was why they tried to keep people from going. They
became somebody else while they were gone.
“Mother . . . ” His throat
clamped down on the word.
“Yes?”
“I . . . I think I’d better go.
I don’t know what I came looking for. It’s not here.
It’s not you. It’s probably something that
doesn’t exist.” The words came rumbling out, one
trampling the heels of the next. “I’m not making you
happy being here. So I’d better just go back.”
He tried to read her face. Disappointment fought relief there,
he thought.
“I’m an Old Earther when I’m out there,
Mother. But I’m not when I come back here. I can see that
when I’m here. I guess I should just stop remembering this
place as home.”
“It is your home.”
“No. Not anymore. It’s just the world where I was
born. And this is just a place where I lived.”
“And I’m just somebody you knew back
when?”
“No. You’re Mother. You’ll always be
that.”
Silence existed between them for more than a minute.
Perchevski finally said, “Won’t you even consider
coming to my place?”
“I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I belong where I
am, being what I am. Useless as that is.”
“Mother . . . You don’t have to
get old out there. We have a rejuvenation
process . . . ”
She showed genuine interest when she asked, “You’ve
recovered the secrets of the immortality labs?”
“No. They’re gone forever. All this process does is
renew the body. It can’t stop nerve degeneration. It’s
been around for centuries.”
“How come nobody’s heard about it?”
“Here? With Earth overpopulated and everybody doing their
damnedest to make more babies? Some people probably know, though.
Some maybe even benefit. It’s not a big secret. But nobody
here ever listens about Outside. Everybody here is part of this big
conspiracy of blindness.”
“That’s not
fair . . . ”
“It’s my world. I have the birthright, if I want, to
point a finger and call names. Are you going to come with
me?” He had begun to think about Greta. That was making him
mad.
“No.”
“I’ll leave in the morning, then. There’s no
sense us carving each other up with knives of love.”
“How poetic!” She sighed. “Darling, Tommy.
Keep writing. I know I almost never answer, but the
letters . . . They help. I like to hear about
those places.”
Perchevski smiled. “It must be in the genes. Thanks. Of
course I’ll write. You’re my number-one
lady.”
Perchevski shuffled from foot to foot. He was too nervous to
sit. He had not realized that going home would unleash so much
emotion.
He glanced around the lounge. The lighter would be carrying a
full load. Tourists and business people. The former were mostly
Ulantonid and Toke. They huddled in racial clumps, intimidated by
Old Earth’s xenophobic reputation, yet determined to explore
the birth world of Man. The Toke nerved themselves with bold talk.
Their every little quirk or gesture seemed to proclaim, “We
are the Mel-Tan Star Warriors of the Marine Toke Legion. We are the
Chosen of the Star Lords. The delinquents of a decadent world
cannot frighten us.”
But they were scared.
No enemy could intimidate the Toke. The Toke War had proven
that. Only the stroke of diplomatic genius that had made a place
for them in Service, and a place for Toke in Confederation, as
equals, had saved the Warrior Caste from extinction. It’s a pity we can’t work something like that for
the Sangaree, Perchevski thought.
But there had been no hatred in the Toke War. It had been an
almost clinically unemotional contest for supremacy in the star
ranges of the Palisarian Directorate.
The Ulantonid were less bellicose than the Toke. Their war with
Confederation had been unemotional too. Another blood-flavored
wrestling match for supremacy.
These looked like a Catholic group headed for Rome, Jerusalem,
and Bethlehem.
“Shuttle Bravo Tango Romeo Three One is now ready
for boarding for passengers making a Lake Constance descent.
Passengers for Corporation Zone will please assemble at Shuttle Bay
Nine.”
“I’d like to meet her,” said a stranger near
Perchevski.
“Who’s that?”
“The woman who does the announcing. She can put her shoes
under my bed anytime.”
“Oh. The voice.” It had been a soothing, mellow, yet
suggestive voice. Similar voices did the announcing in every
terminal Perchevski had ever visited.
The tourists and business people boarded first. Luna Command
made a habit of doing little things that avoided irritating
civilians. The individual Serviceman was supposed to remain
unobtrusive.
Only one check on Luna Command’s power existed. The
operating appropriation voted by a popularly elected senate.
The Toke Marines stood aside for Perchevski, who had come in his
Commander’s uniform.
It was a long, lazy twelve-hour orbit to Lake Constance and
Geneva. Perchevski read, slept, and pondered the story he had
recently begun. He tried not to think about the world below.
The holonets could not begin to portray the squalid reality that
was Old Earth beyond the embattled walls of Corporation Zone.
The shuttle dropped into the lake. A tug guided it into a berth.
Perchevski followed the civilians into the air of his native world.
He had come home. After eight years.
Geneva had not changed. Switzerland remained unspoiled. Its
wealth and beauty seemed to give the lie to all the horror stories
about Old Earth.
It was a mask. Offworld billions cosmeticized the Zone, and
Corporation police forces maintained its sanctity at gunpoint. The
perimeters were in a continuous state of siege.
There were times when Luna Command had to send down Marines to
back the Corporation defense forces. The excuse was protection of
Confederation’s Senate and offices, which were scattered
between Geneva, Zurich, and the south shore of the Bodensee.
Once there had been a social theory claiming that the wealth
coming into the Zone from the Corporations headquartered there
would eventually spread across the planet. A positive balance of
trade would be created. And the positive example of life in the
Zone would act as a counter-infection to the social diseases of the
rest of the planet. Change would radiate from Switzerland like
ripples in a pond.
The theory had been stillborn, as so many social engineering
schemes are. No one here gives a damn, Perchevski reflected as he entered his
hotel room. All that kept Earth going was trillions in
interplanetary welfare. Maybe the whole thing should be allowed to
collapse, then something could be done for the survivors.
The motherworld’s people still played their games of
nationalism and warfare. They loved their Joshua Jas. And they
flatly refused to do anything for themselves while Confederation
could be shamed into paying support.
The too often told tale of welfarism was repeating itself. As
always, provision of means for improvement had become an
overpowering disincentive to action.
Perchevski spent his first day at home doing one of the guided
tours of the wonders of Corporation Zone. With his group were a few
native youngsters who had been awarded the tour as contest
prizes.
They surprised him. They were reasonably well-behaved,
moderately clean, and not too badly dressed. A cut above the
average run, and not unlike kids elsewhere. The Security guard was
not called upon to practice his trade.
The tour group lunched in the restaurant at the Nureyev
Technical Industries chalet atop the Matterhorn.
“Excuse me, Commander.”
Perchevski looked up from his sausage and kraut, startled. A
girl of sixteen, a tall, attractive blonde, stood opposite him. He
was eating alone. His uniform had put off everyone but two Toke
Marines, who were still trying to explain their need to a cook who
was appalled at the idea of permitting raw meat out of his kitchen.
He suspected the Marines wanted to stay near him for a feeling of
added security. The Toke were a strongly hierarchical people, and
among them warriors were the most respected of castes.
“Yes?”
“May I sit here?”
“Of course.” He was stunned. She was one of the
prize winners. Most Old Earthers so hated the Services that even
the best intentioned could not remain polite.
Is she a prostitute? he wondered.
Whatever her pitch, she needed time. She was so nervous she
could not eat.
She suddenly blurted, “You’re Old Earth,
aren’t you? I mean originally.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“The way you look at things. Outworlders look at things
different. Like they’re afraid they’ll catch something,
or something.”
Perchevski glanced at the other prize winners. Disgust marked
their faces. “Your friends
don’t . . . ”
“They’re not my friends. I never saw any of them
before yesterday. How did you get out?” Words tumbled out of
her all strung together, so fast he could hardly follow them.
“Out?”
“Of this. This place. This world.”
“I took the
Academy exams. They accepted me.”
“They didn’t stop you?”
“Who?”
“Your friends. The people you knew. I tried three times.
Somebody always found out and kept me from going. Last time three
men stopped me outside the center and said they’d kill me if
I went in.”
“So there’s still hope,” Perchevski murmured.
He knew what she wanted now.
“Sir?”
“I mean, as long as there’s somebody like you left,
Old Earth isn’t dead. You’ve made my trip
worthwhile.”
“Get me out. Can you get me out? Anything is better than
this. I’ll do anything. Anything you want.”
She meant it. Her desperate promise was so obvious it hurt.
He remembered his own desperation at an even younger age. When
you chose the unpopular path you had to cleave to it with fanatical
determination. He was moved. Deeply.
“I entered every contest there ever was just so I could
get this far. I knew they wouldn’t keep me from coming here,
and I thought maybe I could find
somebody . . . ”
“But you were too scared to do anything when you got
here.”
“They were all outworlders.”
“You leave Earth, you won’t meet anyone else.
I’ve only run into two or three Earthmen in twenty
years.” He eyed the group with which the girl had been
traveling. The youths seemed to have caught the drift of her
appeal. They did not like it.
“I know. I’d get used to it.”
“Are you sure? . . . ”
Three young men drifted to the table. “This slut
don’t belong here, Spike.”
Perchevski smiled gently. “You just made fuck-up number
one, stud. Don’t get smoked.”
That startled them. One snarled, “You’ll shit in
your hand and carry it to China, Spike.”
“May I be of assistance, Commander?”
The Toke Marine dwarfed the three youths. Adam’s apples
bobbed.
“I don’t think so, Fire Cord. I’d say the
Banner is secure. The young men have said their piece. They were
just leaving.”
The Toke Major glared down. At two and a quarter meters and one
hundred thirty kilos he was a runt for a Star Warrior. His aide,
though, was the kind they put on recruiting pamphlets meant for
circulation through the Caste Lodges. He stood quietly behind his
officer, filled with that still, dread equanimity that made the
Star Warriors unnerving to even the most hardened human
Servicemen.
“’Go you silently, Children of the
Night,’” Perchevski quoted from an old song used as a
battle anthem by half the youth gangs on the planet. “You,
especially, talking head.”
The slang had not changed much. Unlike the Outworlds, Old Earth
had become locked into static patterns.
The youths understood. There had been a time when he had been
one of them.
They left, strutting with false bravura. Perchevski thought he
caught a glint of envy in the spokesman’s eye.
“Thank you, Fire Cord.” The Security man, busy
talking shit to a restaurant girl, had missed the encounter.
“We share the Banner, Commander. We will be
near.”
“Fire Cord?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t call them on their own ground.”
“This is my third visit, Commander.”
“Then you know.” He turned to the girl again, who
seemed petrified. The two huge, leathery-skinned Marines moved to
the nearest empty table.
The girl finally blurted, “Why did you come
back?”
“I don’t know. To remind myself? Looking for
something I left behind? Roots? I’m not sure. I wanted to see
my mother. It’s been eight years.”
“Oh.” She sounded envious. “I couldn’t
find out who my parents were. I never met anybody who did know. Not
my age, anyway.”
He smiled. “Do you have a name? After that scene,
you’d better stay close to me or the Marines. Well have to
call you something besides Hey Girl.”
“Greta. Helsung. From Hamburg. Are they real Star
Warriors?”
He laughed softly. “Don’t let them hear you ask a
question like that, Greta from Hamburg. They’re as real as
the stink in the sink. I’m Commander Perchevski. If you
don’t change your mind, I’ll take you to see somebody
when we get back to Geneva.”
“I won’t change it. Not after all the trouble I
had . . . ”
He peered at her intently. This was too breathtaking, too real,
too dream-come-true for her. She did not quite believe him. He
could almost hear her thinking he would use her, then dump
her.
The use temptation existed. She was fresh and beautiful.
“I mean it, Greta. And don’t be scared. You’re
young enough to be my daughter.”
“I’m not a child. I’m old
enough . . . ”
“I’m aware of that. I’m not young enough. Eat
your knockwurst. The meat came all the way from
Palisarius.”
“Oh, God! Really? I didn’t know what I was ordering.
I just asked for something that I didn’t know what it was.
Just for something different. They didn’t show any prices. It
must be awful expensive.” She looked around guiltily.
“So don’t waste it.” Then, “Price
doesn’t matter to most people who eat here. If they
couldn’t afford it, they wouldn’t come. Go on. Enjoy
yourself.”
Her tour expenses would be covered. Luna Command would pick up
the tab. The Services sponsored the contests that gave Zone
vacations as prizes. Some inspired social theorist had decided to
fish for Old Earth’s Gretas, for the one-in-a-million
children who had adventure in their genes and dreams in their
hearts.
The program was as successful as the normal recruiting
procedures. It gave interested youths a chance to escape peer
pressure. Computers watched and cross-checked the contest entries.
Undoubtedly, someone would have contacted Greta if she had not come
to him.
He eyed her and thanked heaven that someone out there still
cared.
He felt pretty good.
Greta remained nearby throughout the tour, milking him for every
detail about outside. Her former companions were not pleased, but
the Fire Cord was always too close for their nerve.
Terrorism was a popular Terran sport. Toke, though, refused to
be terrorized. They bashed heads. Their reputation did not make
them immune, but it did force the natives to respect them.
Perchevski took the girl to the Bureau’s front business
office that evening. “A potential recruit,” he told the
night desk man, who recognized him from a holo portrait that had
preceded him down. “Greta Helsung, from Hamburg. Treat her
right.”
“Of course, Commander. Miss? Will you take a seat? We can
get the paperwork started.”
“It’s that easy?” she asked Perchevski.
The desk man replied, “You’ll be sleeping on the
moon tomorrow night, Miss. Oh. Commander. You’re
leaving?”
“I have an eleven-thirty to Montreal.”
Greta looked at him in silent appeal.
“Will you sponsor, Commander?”
He knew he shouldn’t. It meant accepting legal and
quasi-parental responsibility. The Admiral would be
furious . . . “Of course. Where do I
print?” He offered his thumb.
“Here. Thank you.” Something buzzed. The desk man
glanced to one side, read something from a screen Perchevski could
not see. “Oh-oh.” He thumbed a print-lock. A drawer
popped open. He handed Perchevski a ring.
“Why?” It was a call ring. It would let him know if
the Bureau wanted him on the hurry up. It would give them a means
of following his movements, too.
“Word from the head office. Ready, Miss
Helsung?”
“Greta, I’ll see you in Academy.” He wrote a
number on a scrap of paper. “Keep this. Call it when you get
your barracks assignment.” He started to leave again.
“Commander?”
He turned. Soft young arms flung around his neck. Tears seeped
through his uniform. “Thank you.”
“Greta,” he whispered, “don’t be scared.
They’ll be good to you.”
They would. She would be treated like a princess till her
studies began.
“Good-bye. Be good.”
Four of the tour youths caught him outside. He had to break
one’s arm before they got the message. He was nearly late for
his flight. He had to wait to shift to civilian clothing till after
he had boarded the airbus.
North American Central Directorate showed his mother living at
the same St. Louis Zone address. He went without calling first,
afraid she might find some excuse for not seeing him. Though their
intentions were friendly enough, their few visits had been
tempestuous. She could never forgive him for “turning on his
own kind.”
The passage down the last light canyon was like a journey home
along an old route of despair.
The playgrounds of his childhood had not changed. Trash still
heaped them. Kid gangs still roamed them. Crudely written,
frequently misspelled obscenities obscured the unyielding plastic
walls. Future archaeologists might someday go carefully through
layer after layer of spray paint, reconstructing the aberrations of
generations of uneducated minds.
He labored to convince himself that this was not the totality of
Old Earth.
“Some of it’s worse,” he murmured. Then he
castigated himself for his bigotry.
Sure, most Terran humanity lived like animals. But not all.
There were enclaves where some pride, some care, some ambition
remained. There were native industries. Earth produced most of its
own food and necessities. And there were artists, writers, and men
of vision . . . They just got lost in the
barbarian horde. They formed an unnaturally small percentage of the
population.
Not only had risk-taking been drained from the gene pool, so had
a lot of talent and intelligence.
The average I.Q. on Old Earth ran twenty points below
Confederation mean.
Perchevski overtipped his driver. It was enough to convince the
man that he had conveyed some criminal kingpin. Crime was one
profession where a man could still win some respect.
His codes still opened the building’s doors. After all
these years. He was amazed.
It was another symptom of what had become of his motherworld.
Terror had become so ubiquitous that no one tried very hard to
resist anymore.
His mother was drunk. She snapped, “You’re not
Harold. Who the hell are you? Where’s Harold? Nobody comes
here but Harold.”
He looked past her into the space where he had spent most of his
childhood. Three meters by four, it was divided into three tiny
rooms. It had seemed bigger back then, even with his father living
at home.
He said nothing.
“Look, brother . . . Holy Christ!
It’s you. What the hell are you doing here?” She
sounded angry. “Don’t stand there looking. Get in here
before somebody burns us.”
He slipped past her, plopped himself down on the same little
couch that had been his boyhood bed.
The apartment had not changed. Only his mother had. For the
worse.
It was more than age and unrelenting poverty. It was a sliding
downhill from the inside.
She had begun to go to fat. Her personal habits had slipped. Her
hair had not been combed in days . . .
“Let me clean up. I just got outta bed.” She
vanished behind the movable screen that made a bedroom wall.
“What have you been doing?” she asked.
“Better I should ask you. I sent letters.” And hard
Outworlds currency. Neither had drawn any response.
“I never seem to get around to answering.”
At least she did not make outrageous excuses, like not being
able to pay a writer. He knew she took his missives to a reader.
She cared that much. But not enough to reply.
“I did write twice. Once right after you were here last
time, and two or three years ago, after your father was killed in
the Tanner Revolt. I didn’t care anymore, but I thought you
might.”
“He’s dead?”
“As a stone. He got hung up in the Revanchist Crusade.
They were getting pretty big. Then most of them got themselves
killed attacking Security Fortress.”
“I didn’t get the letter. I didn’t
know.” He had never heard of the Tanner Revolt or Revanchist
Crusade. He asked about them.
“They were going to turn things around. Bring back the
golden age, or something. Unite Earth and make it the center of the
galaxy. A lot of people think you Loonies were behind it. They say
the whole Archaicist tiling was started by your
meddling.”
Archaicism had had its infancy on Old Earth concurrent with his
own. If it had been more social engineering, the plan had
backfired. The motherworld had not been awakened by the glory that
was. It had merely found a new way to escape the reality of
now.
The romantic pasts were popular. Men liked playing empires.
Women liked glamour.
Men died when groups like Stahlhelm, SS Totenkopf, or Black
September ganged up on Irgun or Stern . . . The
smallest and most obscurely referenced groups were the most
dangerous.
The ladies seemed to prefer Regency Balls, French Courts, and
seraglio situations.
A search for uniqueness combined with the need for belonging had
driven people to probe the remotest corners of Earth’s
history.
During his flight he had watched a live newscast of a raid on
Mexico’s Aztec Revivatist Cult. The police attackers had
battled their way into the temple too late to save the
sacrifices.
Perchevski’s mother returned. She wore an outfit that
looked ridiculous on a woman her age. The blouse was see-through.
The skirt fell only to mid-thigh. He concealed his consternation.
No doubt this was her best.
“I don’t get into that kind of thing. Not my line. I
do know a few guys who make a hobby of trying to save this dump
from itself.”
She did not like his attitude. “What are you calling
yourself this time?”
“Perchevski. Cornelius Perchevski.” He stared at
her, and saw Greta forty years from now.
Unless . . . If the kid enlisted, he would feel
his own life-choice was justified. He would have rescued someone
from becoming this . . .
“What are you into?” he asked. “I don’t
recognize the period.”
“Beatles and Twiggy.”
“Eh?”
“Twentieth century. Seventh decade. Anglo-American, with
the beginning in England. One of the light periods.”
“Youth and no philosophy? I gathered that much, though
I’m not familiar with it.”
“It’s all the rage now. It’s so very outré. So
clish-clash with itself. So schizophrenic. You speak English,
don’t you?”
“We have to learn. Most of the First Expansion worlds have
some memory of it.”
“Why don’t you stop all that foolishness? All those
ugly Outsiders . . . You could do well teaching
English here. Everybody wants to learn.” Here we go, he thought. She’s picking up where she left
off eight years ago. It’ll only get worse.
Why did I come here? To punish myself for getting out of this
hell-hole?
She recognized the look on his face. “It’s news
time. Let’s see what’s happening.” She whistled a
few bars of a tune he did not recognize.
The editing was unbelievable. This Archaicist group had done
this. That one had done that. The Bay Bombers had beaten the Rat
Pack 21-19. There wasn’t a word about von Drachau, or
anything else offworld, except mention of a Russian basketball team
trouncing the touring team from Novgorod.
“Big deal,” he muttered. “Novgorod’s
gravity is seventy-three percent of Earth normal. They’d have
to play midgets for it to be fair.”
His mother flared up. She hated foreigners almost as much as she
hated Outworlders, but the Russians were, at least, good Old
Earthers who had had the sense to stay on the
mother-world . . .
He tuned her out, again wondering if he had a masochistic
streak.
Would she try to understand if he explained how much in the
middle he was? That Outworlders disliked Old Earthers just as much
as she loathed them? That he had to reconcile those attitudes both
within himself and with everyone he met?
He did not think she would help. He knew her cure. Give it up.
Come back home. To squalor and
hopelessness . . .
“Mother, I am what I am. I won’t change.
You’re wasting your time when you try. Why don’t we go
out somewhere? This place is depressing.”
“What’s wrong with it? Yes. All right. It’s a
little old. And I have the extra credit over S.I. basic to move.
But it’s so big . . . I like having all
this room to knock around in. I wouldn’t have that in a new
place.”
Perchevski groaned to himself. Now came the Mama Marx
self-criticism session during which she would confess all her
failings as a Social Insuree. Then she would segue into her
shortcoming as a mother, ultimately taking upon herself all
responsibility for his having gone wrong.
He shook his head sadly. In eight years she should have found a
new song. “Come on, Mother. We did this last time.
Let’s go somewhere. Let’s see something. Let’s do
something.”
She dithered. She fussed. It was getting dark out. Only rich Old
Earthers, who could afford the armor, went out after the sun went
down.
“Here,” he said, opening his bag. “I’ve
got my own house now. I brought some holos to show you.”
The pictures finally penetrated her façade.
“Tommy! It’s beautiful! Magnificent. You really are
doing all right, aren’t you?”
“Good enough.”
“But you’re not happy. A mother can tell.” Holy shit, he thought. I’m grown up twice over. I
don’t need that. “You could live there if you
wanted.”
She became suspicious immediately. “It’s not in some
foreign place, is it? Those mountains don’t look like the
Rockies or Sierras.”
“It’s on a world called Refuge.”
“Omigod! Don’t do that! Don’t talk that way.
My heart . . . Did I tell you that the medics
say I have a weak heart?”
“Every time you’ve ever needed an excuse
for . . . ” He stopped himself. He
refused to start the fight.
“Let’s don’t fight, Tommy. We should be
friends. Oh. Speaking of friends. Patrick was killed just last
week. He went out after dark. It was so sad. Nobody can figure out
what made him do it.”
“Patrick?”
“That red-haired boy you were friends with the year before
you . . . You enlisted. I think his last name
was Medich. He was living with his mother.”
He didn’t remember a Patrick, red-haired, Medich, or
otherwise.
He did not belong here. Even the memories were gone. He had
changed. The kid who had lived with this woman was dead. He was an
impostor pretending to be her son.
She was bravely playing the game, trying to be his mother. He
was sure there were other things she would rather be doing.
Hadn’t she been expecting a Harold?
Maybe that was why they tried to keep people from going. They
became somebody else while they were gone.
“Mother . . . ” His throat
clamped down on the word.
“Yes?”
“I . . . I think I’d better go.
I don’t know what I came looking for. It’s not here.
It’s not you. It’s probably something that
doesn’t exist.” The words came rumbling out, one
trampling the heels of the next. “I’m not making you
happy being here. So I’d better just go back.”
He tried to read her face. Disappointment fought relief there,
he thought.
“I’m an Old Earther when I’m out there,
Mother. But I’m not when I come back here. I can see that
when I’m here. I guess I should just stop remembering this
place as home.”
“It is your home.”
“No. Not anymore. It’s just the world where I was
born. And this is just a place where I lived.”
“And I’m just somebody you knew back
when?”
“No. You’re Mother. You’ll always be
that.”
Silence existed between them for more than a minute.
Perchevski finally said, “Won’t you even consider
coming to my place?”
“I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I belong where I
am, being what I am. Useless as that is.”
“Mother . . . You don’t have to
get old out there. We have a rejuvenation
process . . . ”
She showed genuine interest when she asked, “You’ve
recovered the secrets of the immortality labs?”
“No. They’re gone forever. All this process does is
renew the body. It can’t stop nerve degeneration. It’s
been around for centuries.”
“How come nobody’s heard about it?”
“Here? With Earth overpopulated and everybody doing their
damnedest to make more babies? Some people probably know, though.
Some maybe even benefit. It’s not a big secret. But nobody
here ever listens about Outside. Everybody here is part of this big
conspiracy of blindness.”
“That’s not
fair . . . ”
“It’s my world. I have the birthright, if I want, to
point a finger and call names. Are you going to come with
me?” He had begun to think about Greta. That was making him
mad.
“No.”
“I’ll leave in the morning, then. There’s no
sense us carving each other up with knives of love.”
“How poetic!” She sighed. “Darling, Tommy.
Keep writing. I know I almost never answer, but the
letters . . . They help. I like to hear about
those places.”
Perchevski smiled. “It must be in the genes. Thanks. Of
course I’ll write. You’re my number-one
lady.”