And then she whirled about, knife in hand. She cried aloud. "I can't go
on any further! Can't you see this is enough? Stop it! Stop it--"
Jorden leaped for the knife.
In the observation room a technician touched a switch.
* * * * *
Ashby felt the subdued elation of success reached after a long and
strenuous effort. Bonnie was seated across the desk from him, but he sat
at an angle so that he could see the four hulls out of the corner of his
eye. One and Two had made their test flights and the others would not be
far behind. The expedition would be a success, too. There was no longer
any doubt of that, because he knew now where to look for adequate
personnel.
"I'm glad I didn't foul up your test completely, anyway," said Bonnie
slowly. "Even if what you say about Mark shouldn't turn out to be true."
Ashby moved his chair around to face her directly. She was rested, and
had gone through a mental re-orientation which had removed some of the
tension from her face.
"You didn't foul it up at all," he said. "We went far enough to learn
that he would have survived even your suicide, and would have continued
in his determination to carry the colony forward. Nothing but his own
death will stand in his way if he actually sets out on such a project.
Are you completely sure you want to be tied to such a single purposed
man as Mark Jorden is?"
"There's no doubt of that! But I just don't feel as if I can face him
now--with his knowing.... How can I ever be sure his feeling for me was
not merely induced by the test experience, and might change as time goes
on? You should have wiped it all out, and let us start over from
scratch. It would have been easier that way."
"There isn't time enough before the ships leave. But why should we have
erased it all? We took away the postulates of the test and left Bonnie
in his memory. His love for you didn't vanish when the test postulates
went. As long as he has a memory of you he will love you. So why make
him fall in love with you twice? No use wasting so much important time
at your age. Here he comes--"
Bonnie felt she couldn't possibly turn around as the door opened behind
her. She heard Mark's moment of hesitation, his slow steps on the
carpet. Ashby was smiling a little and nodding. Then she felt the hard
grip of Mark's hands on her shoulders. He drew her up and turned her to
face him. Her eyes were wet.
"Bonnie--" he said softly.
* * * * *
Ashby turned to the window again. The gantry cranes were hoisting
machinery in Hull Three. Maybe he had been wrong about there not being
enough time between now and takeoff for Mark and Bonnie to discover each
other all over again. They worked pretty fast. But then, as he had
mentioned, why waste time at their age?
They were smiling, holding tight to each other as Ashby turned back from
the window.
"They tell me I passed," said Jorden. "I'm sorry about taking your best
Social Examiner away from you--but as you told me in the beginning this
colonization business is a family affair."
"Yes--that happens to be one of the few things I was right about." Ashby
motioned them to the chairs. "Through you we located our major error. It
was our identifying rebellion with colonization ability. Colonization is
not a matter of rebellion at all. The two factors merely happen to
accompany each other at times. But the essence of colonization is a
growth factor--of the kind you so very accurately described when Bonnie
pushed you into digging up some insight on the matter. It is so often
associated with rebellion because rebellion is or has been,
historically, necessary to the exercise of this growth factor.
"The American Colonists, for example, were rebels only incidentally. As
a group, they possessed a growth factor forcing them beyond the confines
of the culture in which they lived. It gave them the strength for
rebellion and successful colonization. And it is so easy to confuse
colonists of that type with mere cutthroats, thugs, and misfits. The
latter may or may not have a sufficiently high growth factor. In any
case, their primary drive is hate and fear, which are wholly inadequate
motives for successful colonization.
"The ideal colonist does not break with the parent body, nor does he
merely extend it. He creates a new nucleus capable of interchange with
the parent body, but not controlled by it. He wants to build beyond the
current society, and the latter is not strong enough to pull him back
into it. Colonization may take everything else of value in life and give
nothing but itself in return, but the colonists' desire for new life and
growth is great enough to make this sufficient. It is not a mere
transplant of an old life. It is conception and gestation and birth.
"Our present society allows almost unlimited exercise of the growth
factor in individuals, regardless of how powerful it may be. That is why
we have failed to colonize the planets. They offer no motive or
satisfaction sufficient to outweigh the satisfactions already available.
As a result we've had virtually no applicants coming to us because of
hampered growth. You are one of the very few who might come under our
present approach. And even a very slight change of occupational
conditions would have kept you from coming. You didn't want the
department leadership offered you, because it would limit the personally
creative functions you enjoyed. That one slim, hairbreadth factor
brought you in."
"But how do you expect now to get any substantial number of colonists?"
exclaimed Jorden.
"We'll put on a recruiting campaign. We'll go to the creative
groups--the engineers, the planners, the artists--we'll show that
opportunity for creative functioning and growth will be far greater in
the work of building colonial outposts than in any activity they now
enjoy. And we won't have to exaggerate, either. It's true.
"We'll be able to send out a colony of whom we can be certain. In the
past, colonies have invariably failed when they consisted only of
members fleeing from something, without possessing an adequate growth
factor.
"When this becomes thoroughly understood in my field, I shall probably
never live down my initial error of assuming that a colonist had to hate
or fear what he left behind in order to leave it forever. The exact
opposite is true. Successful colonization of the Universe by Earthmen
will occur only when there is a love and respect for the Homeland--and a
capacity for complete independence from it."
Ashby pressed his fingers together and looked at his visitors soberly.
"There is only one thing further," he said. "We've found out also that
Bonnie is not essentially a colonist--"
Bonnie's face went white. She pushed Jorden's arm away and leaned across
the desk. "You knew--! Then we can't--Why didn't you tell me this in the
beginning?"
"Please don't be hasty, Bonnie," said Ashby. "As I was about to say, we
have found, however, that another condition exists in which you can
become eligible and stable through a genuine love for a qualified
colonist, to the extent you are willing to follow him completely in his
ambitions and desires. This is strictly a feminine possibility--a woman
can become a sort of second order colonist, you might say.
"Of course, Jorden, you still have to make the basic decision as to
whether you want to go to Serrengia or not. We have found out merely
that you _can_."
"I think there's no doubt about my wanting to," said Jorden.
He turned Bonnie around in his arms again, and Ashby chuckled mildly. "I
have always said there is no piece of data you cannot find, provided you
can devise the proper experimental procedure for turning it up," he
said.