"Judith Merril - The Lonely" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

spacesuited figures emerge тАФnot the same as in opening shots. This looks like actual photographic
record of landing, which seems unlikely. Beautiful damn reconstruction, if so. Narration commences with
Aldebaran date. I substitute Terran Calendar date we know for same, and accept gift of one more
Rosetta Stone.)
The time is the year 2053. For more than six decades, this primitive giant of space has ployed its way
through the restrictive medium of slow space. Twice before in its travels, the great ship has paused.
First at Procyon, where they found the system both uninhabited and uninviting; and at the time they
did not yet know what urgent cause they had to make a landing. (Our date for Procyon exploration, from
L-1 log, is 2016, which fits.)
Then at Saiph, two decades later, where they hoped for just a bare minimum of hospitalityтАФno more
than safe footing for their launches, in which they could live while they tried to ensure their future survival.
But this system's planets offered little hope. One Earth-size enveloped in horror-film type gases and nasty
moistures. (One more with dense atmosphere of high acid content: probe from ship corroded in
minutes.)
They limped on. A half decade rater they came to a time of decision, and determined not to try for
the next nearest star system, but for the closest one from which their radio had received signs of intelligent
life: Aldebaran.
What they had learned between Procyon and Saiph was that those of their crew who were born in
space were not viable. The ship had been planned to continue, if necessary, long beyond the lifespan of
its first crew. The Terran planners had ingeniously bypassed their most acute psychosocial problem, and
staffed the ship with a starting crew of just one sex. Forty females started the journey, with a supply of
sperm from one hundred genetically selected males carefully preserved on board.
Sex determination in this species is in the male chromosome, and most of the supply had been
selected for production of females. The plan was to maintain the ship in transit with single-sexed
population and restore the normal balance only at the end of the journey.
The Terrans have apparently reached a level of self-awareness that enables them to avoid the worst
dangers of their own divisive quality, while utilizing the advantages of this special (pun intendedтАФProf.
Eel was sparking again) ambivalence. Their biological peculiarities have, among other things, developed a
far greater tolerance in the females for the type of physical constraints and social pressures that were to
accompany the long, slow voyage. Males, on the other hand, being more aggressive, and more
responsive to hostile challenges, would be needed for colonizing a strange planet. (Dissertation on
mammals here which says nothing new, but restates from an outsider'sтАФrather admiringтАФviewpoint with
some distinction. Should be a textbook classicтАФif we can ever release this thing.)
That was the plan. But when the first females born on the trip came to maturity, and could not
conceive, the plan was changed. Three male infants were born to females of the original
complementтАФless than half of whom, even then, were still alive and of child-bearing age.
(Well, he tells it effectively, but adds nothing to what we know from the log. Conflicts among the
women led to death of one boy, eventual suicide of another at adolescence. Remaining mature male fails
to impregnate known fertile women. Hope of landing while enough fertiles remained to start again pretty
well frustrated at Saiph. Decision to try, for nearest system eight light years offтАФwith Aldebaran still
farther. Faint fantastic hope still at landing, with just one child-bearer leftтАФthe Matriarch, if you recall?)
Remembering the reasons for their choice of Aldebaran, you can imagine the reaction when that
landing party, first, lost all radio signals as they descended; then, could find no trace whatsoeverтАФto their
sensesтАФof habitation. The other planets were scouted, to no avail. The signals on the Mother Ship's
more powerful radio continued to come from VI. One wild hypothesis was followed up by a thorough
and fruitless search of the upper atmosphere. The atmosphere was barely adequate to sustain life at the
surface. Beam tracing repeatedly located the signal beacon in a moutain of VI, which showedтАФto the
Terrans тАФno other sign of intelligent life.
The only logical conclusion was that they had followed a "lighthouse beacon" to an empty world. The
actual explanation, of course, was in the nature of the Arlemites, the natives of Aldebaran VI.