The ancient rule was sink or swim--swim
in the miasma of a planet without
spaceflight, or sink to utter destruction!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I
The horses and packs were loaded before we went aboard the scoutship.
The scout bay is no more than a great oversized airlock with a dozen
small ships squatting over their tubes, but it was the last of the Ship
that I might ever see, so I took a long final look from the top of the
ramp.
There were sixteen of us girls and thirteen boys. We took our places
in the seats in the center of the scout. Riggy Allen made a joke that
nobody bothered to laugh at, and then we were all silent. I was feeling
lost and just beginning to enjoy it when Jimmy Dentremont came over to
me. He's red-headed and has a face that makes him look about ten. An
intelligent runt like me.
He said what I expected. "Mia, do you want to go partners if we can get
together when we get down?"
I guess he thought that because we were always matched on study I liked
him. Well, I did when I wasn't mad at him, but now I had that crack
he'd made about being a snob in mind, so I said, "Not likely. I want to
come back alive." It wasn't fair, but it was a good crack and he went
back to his place without saying anything.
My name is Mia Havero. I'm fourteen, of course, or I wouldn't be
telling this. I'm short, dark and scrawny, though I don't expect that
scrawniness to last much longer. Mother is very good looking. In the
meantime, I've got brains as a consolation.
After we were all settled, George Fuhonin, the pilot, raised the ramps.
We sat there for five minutes while they bled air out of our tube and
then we just ... dropped. My stomach turned flips. We didn't have to
leave that way, but George thinks it's fun to be a hot pilot.
Thinking it over, I was almost sorry I'd been stinking to Jimmy D. He's
the only competition I have my own age. The trouble is, you don't go
partners with the competition, do you? Besides, there was still that
crack about being a snob.
The planet chosen for our Trial was called Tintera. The last contact
the Ship had had with it--and we were the ones who dropped them--was
almost 150 years ago. No contact since. That had made the Council
debate a little before they dropped us there, but they decided it was
all right in the end. It didn't make any practical difference to us
kids because they never tell you anything about the place they're going
to drop you. All I knew was the name. I wouldn't have known that much
if Daddy weren't Chairman of the Council.
I felt like crawling in a corner of the ship and crying, but nobody
else was breaking down, so I didn't. I did feel miserable. I cried when
I said good-by to Mother and Daddy--a real emotional scene--but that
wasn't in public.
* * * * *
It wasn't the chance of not coming back that bothered me really,
because I never believed that I wouldn't. The thought that made me
unhappy was that I would have to be on a planet for a whole month.
Planets make me feel wretched.
The gravity is always wrong, for one thing. Either your arches and
calves ache or every time you step you think you're going to trip on
a piece of fluff and break your neck. There are vegetables everywhere
and little grubby things just looking for _you_ to crawl on. If you
can think of anything creepier than that, you've got a real nasty
imagination. Worst of all, planets stink. Every single one smells--I've
been on enough to know that. A planet is all right for a Mud-eater, but
not for me.
We have a place in the Ship like that--the Third Level--but it's only a
thousand square miles and any time it gets on your nerves you can go up
a level or down a level and be back in civilization.
When we reached Tintera, they started dropping us. We swung over the
sea from the morning side and then dropped low over gray-green forested
hills. Finally George spotted a clear area and dropped into it. They
don't care what order you go in, so Jimmy D. jumped up, grabbed his
gear and then led his horse down the ramp. I think he was still
smarting from the slap I'd given him.
In a minute we were airborne again. I wondered if I would ever see
Jimmy--if he would get back alive.
It's no game we play. When we turn fourteen, they drop us on the
nearest colonized planet and come back one month later. That may sound
like fun to you, but a lot of us never come back alive.
Don't think I was helpless. I'm hell on wheels. They don't let us grow
for fourteen years and then kick us out to die. They prepare us. They
do figure, though, that if you can't keep yourself alive by the time
you're fourteen, you're too stupid, foolish or unlucky to be any use to
the Ship. There's sense behind it. It means that everybody on the Ship
is a person who can take care of himself if he has to. Daddy says that
something has to be done in a closed society to keep the population
from decaying mentally and physically, and this is it. And it helps to
keep the population steady.
I began to check my gear out--sonic pistol, pickup signal so I could be
found at the end of the month, saddle and cinches, food and clothes.
Venie Morlock has got a crush on Jimmy D., and when she saw me start
getting ready to go, she began to check her gear, too. At our next
landing, I grabbed Ninc's reins and cut Venie out smoothly. It didn't
have anything to do with Jimmy. I just couldn't stand to put off the
bad moment any longer.
The ship lifted impersonally away from Ninc and me like a rising bird,
and in just a moment it was gone. Its gray-blue color was almost the
color of the half-overcast sky, so I was never sure when I saw it last.