Most people actually know a good deal
more than they may be aware of at
any given moment. And perhaps one
of the functions of dreams is to remind
us of what we know, but will not let
ourselves know on a conscious level....
"This revolt is hopeless, Ker-jon, because it only
strikes at the symptoms of unrest, without touching
the roots. You may succeed--you may unseat those
now in authority. But whoever moves in will only
perpetuate the tyranny against which you revolted--renew
the same oppression, under different slogans."
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Science Fiction Quarterly November 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_The Space Ark left its home planet, Urth, two thousand years ago
Canopus IV time, arriving here in the Canopus System some five
hundred years later. That is all we know for certain; the rest is mere
conjecture._
_Two salient features of the Space Ark's unique social institutions
stand out above the myth and fairytale of our ancestors, however. The
first is the fabled story of the Mutant-makers, and when one studies
the conditions surrounding this phenomenon, the fabled story becomes
cold scientific fact. On a giant balanced-terrarium of a ship which
was largely automatic, seemingly isolated forever in the vastnesses of
interstellar space, our ancestors lacked even a modicum of external
challenge. They thus had to create their own artificial stimuli or face
an inevitable retreat down the ladder of decadence to barbarism. It
appears that for a time they went too far: they created mutants. These
in turn gave rise to a rigid caste-system on the Ark, a system which
afforded an extreme in internal challenges and responses._
_The second salient feature of the Space Ark's social institutions
was its favoring of the biolo-mental sciences over the chemi-physical
sciences. This, again, proves to be an inevitable by-product of
the Space Ark's static environment. No physical world existed:
physics became a useless dogma, a meaningless jumble of terms
which bore no semantic relation to the world-at-large. On the
other hand, the Space Ark was a universe of introversion. The
biolo-mental sciences leaped ahead of what had developed into a
something-less-than-static-civilization. This, as we have seen, gave
rise to the Mutant-makers. But on a constructive level, it fostered
the growth of a new science of psychology, vastly superior to the old
Urth science, and, some suspect, considerably more refined than our
own mental sciences. A particular manifestation of this lost science
was the ability to project tri-dimensional images of dreams, to record
them while the conscious mind slumbered, to play them back later and to
interpret them unerringly...._
--_Andoos-Rob't_, A Short History of the Abortive Social Institutions
of the Urth-Canopus Space Ark, _Introduction_.
* * * * *
Ker-jon awoke suddenly, sitting bolt-upright in bed. It was
cool--night-period temperatures always were--but fine droplets of
perspiration dotted Ker-jon's forehead and dark sweat-stains discolored
the armpits of his sleeping robe.
Over and over, one thought twisted through his mind; he was not
a mutant; he was one-hundred percent normal _homo sapiens_ and a
bio-technician on the hydroponics staff at that. Yet--why did he always
dream the same dream of a big hairless Ker-jon, his bald, shining dome
topped with the three ridges of flesh which had manifested themselves
in a series of mutations during the generation of his birth? Why did
that dream always follow the same path....
He chuckled in spite of himself. The psych-technicians might yield
the answer this time. He removed the electrodes from his temples,
snapped the recorder off, rewound the dream-tape. Yes, he'd let the
psycho-techs play with it in the morning, despite Cluny-ann's warning.
When the morning gong sounded, Ker-jon crept softly from his room. His
way would lead past the quarters of the female bio-technicians, and he
hoped to avoid a meeting with Cluny-ann. But the slim, fair-haired maid
knew of his appointment with the psych-tech, and she had other ideas.
Ker-jon barely got past the portal to the female quarters when its door
slid into the wall with a faintly audible hiss. Arms akimbo, Cluny-ann
stood there facing him, the crown of her head hardly reaching his chin.
"Good morning, Ker-jon," she greeted him coolly.
"Please, I'm busy."
"I only wanted to see you for a moment, Ker-jon; just a moment, that's
all. Will you take breakfast with me?"
"No. I said I have an appointment."
"You're always rushing around like the enzymes we feed into the
'ponic-vats. I'm sure your appointment will keep. I'm also sure it is
unwise, this appointment."
Ker-jon prayed silently that she wouldn't part her lips invitingly for
a kiss, because then indeed he might decide to forego his appointment
with the psych-tech. Apparently, that did not enter Cluny-ann's mind.
She merely walked out into the corridor, hands still on hips, blocking
his path.
"Tomorrow we try to smash the Mutant-makers," she told him. "But today
you must carry your dream with you and have it interpreted. Won't it
keep? If something lurks in that dream which holds the key to our
plans--_poof!_ No more plans. Stay, Ker-jon."
Gently but firmly, he pushed her out of the way, smiled for a moment
when she struggled futilely against the muscles of his good right arm.
He said, as he went on down the corridor, "We can take lunch together.
I'll feel more like eating after this nightmare is explained, anyway."
* * * * *
The psych-tech, Ab'nath-Jawg, wore an immaculate white smock over
his scrawny frame, a pair of spectacles over his big, watery eyes.
Ker-jon saw no reason for the white smock; perhaps tradition said all
psych-techs were to wear white smocks, and that was that.
"Ker-jon," Ab'nath mumbled, looking at his records, "bio-tech first
class, non-mutant, no mutations in the family line. Right?"
Ker-jon nodded.
"Your request for a visit says you've been having a dream which has
recurred frequently. An unpleasant dream?"
"Ummmm, no; not in itself. But I think--"
"That somehow its implications are unpleasant for you--is that it? Yes?
I see. May I have the tape, please?"
Wordless, Ker-jon handed him the little spool, waited while the
psych-tech snapped it into place in a small projecting machine. After
that, Ab'nath flicked a switch, and the lights in the little room
dimmed.
In the center of the room stood a large transparent cube, as long in
each of its three dimensions as a tall man. Within it now, lights
pulsed, flashed, coalesced. Then they settled back, playing only at the
corners, waiting.
Ker-jon held his breath. A tri-dimensional, full color replica of his
dream filled the cube.
There was Ker-jon, but a hairless, three-ridged-mutant Ker-jon,
and there in the crook of his left arm a slim blonde girl who
could have been Cluny-ann, except that she too bore the marks of
a mutant--different strain this time, with delicate silver scales
covering parts of her fair body. Under a large bell-jar in the
foreground, a compact black machine hummed shrilly, a light above its
squat main body flashing on and off, on and off.
The queerest part of the dream was its background. Great concentric
circles of color closed in on the bell-jar, broad bands of green, blue,
red, orange, yellow. When first he'd had the dream, Ker-jon thought
the circles emanated from the bell-jar, but clearly, this was not so.
Rather, the bands of color surrounded it, almost as if they somehow
attempted to crush it.
The dream Ker-jon did not think they could. He balled his right fist
and struck down once, savagely, at the glass. It broke, but the machine
hummed on and on. Ker-jon shrank back in horror, with a feeling of
helplessness.
And that was all. Back to the cube came its flashing lights.
Ab'nath-Jawg scratched his balding head. "A very odd dream," he
admitted. "Do you know the girl?"
"She is Cluny-ann, my betrothed."
"A mutant?" demanded the psych-tech.
"No. But then, neither am I."
"Yet you both look like mutants in the dream. Interesting."
Ker-jon frowned. "I didn't come here to show you something interesting;
I came to have the dream explained. Last night was the sixth time. The
same pattern, no change."
"Relax, my friend. These things take time. Strange, we don't understand
the radio with which we communicate between sections of our Ark, but
histories will tell you that both radio and dream-machine function on
the same principle. I don't understand radio; I can only guess, but the
dream-machine I know. The recorder is stimulated by electro-magnetic
waves from the cerebrus when you dream. The projector takes these
vibrations and reproduces the dream itself. A to B, back to A again.
Simple."
Ker-jon shook his head wearily. "I didn't come for that, either. I know
the theory--"
"Patience! Will you have patience? I will submit the record to a staff
meeting of psych-techs this afternoon, and we'll have an interpretation
ready for you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow! Tomorrow might be too late."
"That's ridiculous, Ker-jon. Even if the dream manifests itself again
tonight, so what? Tomorrow is soon enough."
Ker-jon shook his head sadly, took his leave. He couldn't tell the
psych-tech that tomorrow might be too late because by then his
fellow-conspirators would be floundering in rebellion. It all depended
on him, of course: he had access to the master controls in the 'ponics
room. Few people did, and certainly no mutants. Ker-jon, then; but
Ker-jon had a dream which bothered him, which awakened him, sweating
and afraid, in the middle of the night....
* * * * *
Night-period. Dull blue lights casting eerie shadows in a little-used
back room of the library. And six men who wove their plans for a
_coup-d'Ark_ when morning came.
Ker-jon sat on the floor with Cluny-ann, squatting near the dusty
stacks which held the un-used physical science books. Not a volume here
had been disturbed for perhaps a score of years--perhaps more. Why
study the physical sciences when there was no real physical world with
which to correlate your findings? Why study them when your universe was
bounded with walls of glistening beryl-steel?
Cluny-ann sat near Ker-jon, but she kept her back to him, angrily.
She'd hardly spoken a word since he returned from the psych-tech's
office, and lunch had been a sorry social failure.
Now Flam-harol got up, paced back and forth for a time, the dome of his
three-ridged head gleaming under the blue lights. He licked his lips,
fingered for a moment the central flesh-ridge atop his skull. Then he
spoke in his deep, booming voice. "I can't help it if I'm nervous; we
mutants have waited long and long for this--"
A chorus of "ayes" seconded that, and Flam-harol went on. "We can
afford no mistakes. We do or we die--tomorrow. One slip--just
one--could be fatal. But in the end, if all goes well, we'll smash the
Mutant-making machinery, we'll smash the rule of the Mutant-maker. I
don't have to tell you what that means. Whither we came from, that
doesn't matter. A world called Urth, but I cannot picture Urth--a huge
world a hundred times or more larger than the Ark, a world where you
live on the outside, not on the inside.
"I cannot picture it, and so I won't try. But this I can picture. A
hundred years ago, they started making mutants, to satisfy a warped
craving for superiority. Half the people on the Ark now are mutants.
Ridge-head, scaled, toe-less--what's the difference? Mutants all,
living in the worst quarters, relegated to inferior positions, scorned,
ridiculed....
"Tomorrow, we end it; by evening, no more. Equality on the Ark, yes,
but that's not of primary importance. We will destroy the machinery
which can make mutants. No fresh variants will arise, and that is more
important. Now, your plans."
Another ridge-head stood up. "At ten hours, twelve minutes, my men take
the astro-room."
A chunky mutant with scales covering his chest: "We converge, along
with Flam-harol's squad, on the armory. Also at ten hours, twelve
minutes."
Second scaled mutant: "The Mutant-maker's quarters. We take the reins
of government at ten hours, thirty five minutes."
Lithely, Cluny-ann got to her feet. "The Chamber of Change, at ten
hours, forty minutes. I lead my women there, and it is hoped that with
so much confusion elsewhere, we'll be able to destroy the machinery.
But--"
"But what?" Flam-harol said. "We appreciate the aid of you
non-mutants. Yet if you have any doubts--"
"It's not that," Cluny-ann told him. "I don't think our revolution will
be enough; that's all."
"What more is there?"
"I don't know! If I knew, that would be different. I suspect that the
whole thing may start over again before we know it."