"Flam-harol is developing a militant organization and a more rigid
caste-system than we've ever had before; you know that. What we've got
to do--what we've been trying to do all along--was to unite the mutants
and the non-mutants with a real external challenge. A rebirth of the
physical sciences and a subsequent conquest of them would have done it.
But not now; now we'll need something more concrete.
"A serious threat, perhaps. What if the Ark stopped functioning,
Ker-jon?"
"Stopped functioning?"
"Of course. We have day-lights. We have night-lights. We have
hydroponic gardens supplying both air and food, which, except for a few
minor adjustments that the bio-technicians can make, function perfectly
in themselves. We have instruments of astrogation, and the same thing
applies. We don't even know where we're going!
"Damage all that. Damage everything which carries us along so smoothly,
and what will happen? We'd either all join together to conquer the new
challenge, or we'd perish."
"You'd take a chance like that?" Ker-jon demanded.
Cluny-ann nodded vigorously. "We have to. It's either that or we'll
sink lower and lower, until there's nothing left of civilization."
"Okay," Ker-jon spread his hands out wide. "You're both way ahead of
me. How will we do it?"
* * * * *
The albino smiled. "We've found the old records which explain how the
Ark runs. With them to guide us, we'll try our hand at sabotage."
"Hold on. Just hold on! Why do you have to do that? If you have the
records, why don't you simply take control of the machinery and force
Flam-harol and his crew to step down."
The albino shook his head. "That's precisely what we _won't_ do. All
the Ark has ever had to face was human challenge, one man usurping
control from another. That extends down to all levels, Ker-jon. We have
to make a complete break with that tradition, or we'll find ourselves
right back where we started from, just as Flam-harol did. Psych-tech
Ab'nath will stand behind me on that, and he knows what he's talking
about."
"You're telling me," Ker-jon said, remembering the dream.
"Then it's agreed. You and the girl will study the records, learn the
location and function of each piece of machinery on the Ark. There
are just a half dozen of us: Ab'nath, the two 'policemen', Cluny-ann,
you, myself. When you're ready we'll do some fancy tinkering with the
key mechanisms. And this is important, Ker-jon: we must be so thorough
that, alone and without either additional education or aid from others,
we won't be able to repair the damage. A danger, yes--but that's the
only way it will work."
* * * * *
Ten days, twenty. Thirty. With Cluny-ann, Ker-jon pored over the old
books. Terms swam through his head madly--vectors, constants, laws of
thermodynamics, others. He could not hope to understand the vast amount
of theory behind them, not now, not yet. But it did not matter. He
sought a working knowledge, an engineer's knowledge, the knowledge of a
physical-technician, when there had not been a physical-technician on
the Ark for generations. More particularly, a physical-technician bent
upon temporary destruction....
Wi'son-gil kept him informed of Flam-harol's new regime. Discontent
everywhere. A riot in the 'ponics room--quelled. Another in astro--also
quelled. But discontent hovered everywhere, with no adequate channel
through which to manifest itself. It faded, became bickering;
Flam-harol was more powerful every day. Probably, he considered himself
benevolent--
* * * * *
Green-uniformed albinos shuffled about the corridors. Their
too-white skin looked sickly under the night-lights, but they seemed
cocky. Ker-jon ducked around a corner, pulling Cluny-ann with him.
"Careful--that one almost spotted us!"
They crept forward, stalking silently on bare feet. Ker-jon had his
key to the 'ponics room, and his heart was pounding furiously when
they reached the door. What if Flam-harol had had the lock changed?
He chuckled softly. He'd been reading too much about the physical
sciences; no one knew how to change a lock! Oh, they could oil it if it
clogged with rust, but that was all. Either the old lock remained, or
no lock at all.
He inserted his key, twisted, heard the tumblers fall. The door swung
in silently.
Past the rows of squat, ugly 'ponics tanks they walked, the dank
vegetation smell heavy on the air. Moisture dotted the water pipes with
gleaming droplets, some unknown liquid bubbled in a vat nearby.
They paused at a great shining mound of machinery. "It's called a
generator," Ker-jon said. "But don't ask me what it does. I only know
it's crucial. Umm-mm, listen to that."
The machine throbbed. He'd worked in the 'ponics room as a bio-tech,
and he'd always taken the huge machine and its humming noise for
granted. It was there, and that meant it had a purpose. It functioned;
all you had to do was put oil into the little hole whenever the sound
rose to a shriek. But now the purpose meant something. This generator
kept the tanks going, producing air, food, water....
Ker-jon wielded his screw-driver clumsily. Only menials--formerly
mutants and now non-mutants--played with such tools. If the Ark passed
through a particularly brilliant area of space, if the blackness
outside the ports in the astro-room churned into a seething mass of
light, the menials used these screw drivers and fastened thin metal
shields over the ports.
_Insert it there, yes! And twist. See, the little plug comes loose. And
now another._
Suddenly, the entire casing fell away, and Ker-jon peered into a maze
of intricate wiring. _Remove that one, that one, and that one. Careful,
don't touch that or you'll receive a shock--whatever a shock was_--
Without warning, the machine stopped its humming. Nearby, the liquid
which bubbled away merrily in its vat gurgled once or twice, then
subsided. The silence closed in from all sides.
* * * * *
Three days later, Ker-jon received a summons from Flam-harol. The
ridge-head look worried, and he did not try to hide it. "You were a
bio-tech first class, hydroponics division. I--I have a job for you."
"Yes? What's that?"
"Something happened. I don't know what, but a machine which used to hum
doesn't do it any longer, and the vegetation in 'ponics looks a little
sick. The level in the water-storage units is lowering--"
Ker-jon wondered how long the air would last. He almost sensed a
difference, a thickness, a necessity to breathe more deeply, perhaps
more rapidly. His imagination, probably, because according to the
books, air would continue to be manufactured as long as the plants
lasted. "What do you want me to do?" Ker-jon said.
"Fix it, that's what."
"I can't."
"What do you mean, you can't? Don't cross me, Ker-jon; I'll have you
detained--"
"That isn't what I mean. I know the humming machine you're talking
about. I don't know how it works; no one does. Of course, we can find
out. If we study the old records--"
"Bah! Say, do you know any good astro-techs? The machinery in the
astro-room doesn't work. I don't know the function of that room,
Ker-jon, but I've heard it's important."
"We've all heard that, but no one knows why. We could find out, though."
"How?"
"By studying the old books." Ker-jon wondered if it had been Ab'nath or
the old albino who had tampered with the astro-mechanisms.
Flam-harol got up wearily. "Forget it; forget I called you. I can
see you'll be no help at all. I've heard talk about studying the old
records. All over the Ark. But man, think! You can't sit down in a hole
someplace and read a book to solve anything. That just isn't the way
things get done."
"You'll learn," Ker-jon said, getting up to leave.
* * * * *
That same afternoon, Wi'son-gil made a mistake. He called a mass
meeting, declaring that he knew a way to stop what had caused growing
panic on the Ark. If Flam-harol hadn't become frightened, the panic
never would have arisen--Ker-jon knew that. But when you stroll through
the now-silent 'ponics room and see brown-edged, stiffening vegetation
where once the place had been warm and richly green, you worry.
Especially when you've been led to believe, along with everyone else,
that everything within the Ark depended on the 'ponics room.
The crowd gathered, noisily at first, but the old albino quieted them.
Ker-jon realized with some surprise that the man could be an impressive
figure. Small and thin, he yet maintained an air of confidence. His
fine white hair framed a gaunt, thin-featured face, and from a distance
the pink eyes almost seemed alive with fires.
But mostly it was the voice--calm, soothing, sure of itself, a father
talking to his children, telling them of the wonders of a lost science,
of the role it once had played in the construction of the Ark, of
a time when their ancestors had lived elsewhere, not on the Ark at
all, of a time in the indeterminable future when they would leave the
confines of a tight little world for one where a man could spend his
whole lifetime walking and never quite reach the other side. Telling
them, too, of the role that lost science must now play again, to repair
the Ark. Telling them that they must strive together to master this
tool of their past in order to build their future, to learn what they
were, and where and why and how, to use this knowledge for the tasks
that lay ahead.
He had them spellbound, weaving fanciful legends of the past and a
place called Urth, explaining their greatness to them and their destiny
to conquer a far place in the name of mankind which was all of them and
infinitely more. And telling them, above all, that ridge-head must be
brother to scaled mutant, and both to albino, and all to non-mutants.
They half-wanted that, anyway; they'd had enough of fighting all their
lifetimes, and what had been lacking was a common cause for all of them.
* * * * *
Almost, it worked. But Flam-harol appeared in the meeting room,
stalking in with his armed guards--not albinos, not now when he
expected troubles. But with ridge-heads, big, powerful, naked to their
waists and ready for trouble, the huge muscles bulging....
"Stop that man!" he cried.
Murmurs in the crowd, but no one moved.
Wi'son-gil kept right on speaking.
Ker-jon realized the ridge-head's intention too late. He stood just
below the dais, eyes intent upon the old albino. But something made him
turn, and he bellowed a warning.
Flam-harol had raised his needle-gun.
Things happened fast after that. Cluny-ann must have seen the danger
too, for she pushed her way through the crowd, elbowing people out of
her way, reached the ridge-head. They began to grapple, great-thewed
mutant and slim, fair-haired girl.
It didn't last long. Ker-jon leaped upon the dais, throwing himself at
the albino, pulling him down. It was then that Flam-harol fired.
Ker-jon felt the needle brush past his cheek, saw a growing stain
of red on the albino's jumper. The old man sagged to the floor, the
faintest trace of a smile on his lips. When Ker-jon kneeled beside him
and felt for the heartbeat, the old man was dead.
Confused, the crowd milled about. People jostled one another, some
shouted angrily. Meaningless action without a leader--
Ker-jon tore his way through the mob. Cluny-ann lay in a sobbing heap
on the floor and the ridge-head pointed his weapon at her, shouting
for his men to disperse the mob. None of them moved. Undecided, they
stood there uncomfortably, shuffling their feet. Clearly, they hadn't
responded favorably to cold-blooded murder.
Flam-harol whirled, swinging his needle-gun around to face Ker-jon, but
he didn't make it. They locked together, stumbled, fell to the floor
and rolled about. The needle-gun clattered away harmlessly. Two or
three ridge-heads tried to intervene, but growling ominously now, the
crowd kept them away.
He had a fight on his hands, Ker-jon knew. And sometimes an immensely
complex situation could boil down to something as elemental as that. If
he lost, the old order would remain; if he won....
The thoughts hindered him, and he longed to drive them from his mind.
Just a fight, that was all. Like any of a dozen brawls he had had
because of his quick temper. But Flam-harol was superbly-muscled, like
all ridge-heads--and strong, strong! He forced Ker-jon over, his back
to the floor, and he felt strong hands closing about his throat and a
rising-falling motion which pounded his head against the hard metal.