Part 21 (1/2)

Their Social Skills cla.s.s began with a song: Folk of many creeds and nations Travelled in realms of thought, Made their computations, Forged from steel and flame s.h.i.+ps of no earthly sort Leaving earthly port - So strangers to Red Planet came.

The song ran though several verses. The children sang l.u.s.tily, with enjoyment. It was noticeable that the girls concentrated on the music. Some of the boys were secretly prodding each other and making faces.

Afterwards I asked Alpha what she thought of the song, which sounded rather laboured to my ears.

'We like it,' Alpha said. 'It's a good song, about us.'

'What do you like about it?'

'”s.h.i.+ps of no earthly sort” - that's really hot. What does it mean, do you suppose?'

The teacher, the sculptor Ben.a.z.ir Bahudur, kept the two s.e.xes in the same cla.s.sroom but segregated. 'It's a difference in the genes,' she explained. 'The boys have more difficulty in learning social skills, as you know. The girls are more intuitive. We think the boys need the girls in the room, to be given a glimpse of an alternative way of behaving. You will see the difference when we get to the games. But first we have a Natural History Slot. Are you ready, kids?'

Ben.a.z.ir was a slightly built woman. Her leisurely movements suggested a certain weariness, but when the full regard of her deep-set eyes was turned on you, an impression of drive and energy was received.

A screen lit on the wall. Insect noises could be heard. A brilliant landscape was revealed, the landscape of East Africa. The viewpoint moved rapidly towards a fine stand of trees.

'They're acacia trees,' said Ben.a.z.ir.

Young saplings grew here, as well as mature trees with their corded bark. Ben.a.z.ir gave the children an explanation of what trees were and how they had developed. As she was explaining how grazing animals threatened the very existence of trees of all kinds, the viewpoint snuggled into the shade of a particular tree as if it would nest there. The children were silent, wondering.

A branch served as a highway for ants. The creatures were busy patrolling the whole tree. The camera followed them down to the ground and up to the fragrant blossoms of the acacia.

'I'm glad we don't have those little things up here, miss,' said one of the girls.

'Ants are clever little creatures,' Ben.a.z.ir replied. 'They have good social organisation. They guard the acacias from enemies - from herbivores and other insects. In return, the trees give them shelter. You wouldn't want to climb that tree, would you? Why is that?'

'Because you'd get stung/attacked/bitten/eaten alive,' came gleeful answers from various parts of the room.

A thoughtful-looking boy asked, 'What about the tree having s.e.x? How can bees get to the flowers if they are attacked by these creepy little things?'

Ben.a.z.ir explained that the young acacia flowers, which smell very sweet, put out a chemical signal to keep the soldier ants away, so allowing the bees to pollinate them.

'What do the flowers smell like, exactly?' the boy asked.

Cang Hai and I debated privately if such glimpses of life on Earth would not start the children wondering about what they were missing. When we put this point to Ben.a.z.ir, she said that her charges had to be prepared for their return to Earth. She fed them with these shots of knowledge before they went out to play.

The children's games had been cleverly adapted to encourage the boys without discouraging the girls. Skipping and counting games were played 'outside', on the Astroturf. The differences between the temperaments of boys and girls became clear when Alpha volunteered to tell everyone a story.

Her story was about a little mummy animal (evidently a mole), who lived with her tiny family under the Astroturf. She told her children to behave and, if they were good, they would get extra cups of tealem, their favourite drink. They all went to bed in little plastic beakers and slept well till morning. The End.

Scornfully, a boy called Morry took up Alpha's tale. The mummy animal was going off to get some groceries. She popped her head up above the ground just as the machine that trimmed the Astroturf was whizzing along. Zummmm! It cut off her head, which went flying with a trail of blood like a comet into someone's shoe!

'Oh no, it didn't at all!' shrieked Alpha angrily.

'Well, let's see how likely these events really are,' said Ben.a.z.ir, smiling at both sides.

'Her head did not come off,' said Alpha firmly. 'More likely it was Morry's head.'

Unable to sustain verbal argument, Morry stuck his tongue out at her.

Ben.a.z.ir said nothing more, but began to dance in front of her pupils. Her steps were slow, teasingly cautious, her hand gestures elaborate, as if they said, 'Look, dear children, life is like this and this, and so much to be enjoyed that no quarrels are required...'

As Cang Hai and I walked back to our apartment, we discussed what kind of future citizens of Utopia these children would make. We decided that the anti-social phase the children were going through would not be sustained; and we hoped the element of fantasy and imagination would remain. We realised how important were the skills of mothers, fathers and teachers.

Back in our apartment, I was forced to lie down. I slept for a while.

17.

The Birth Room

Despite recurring dizzy spells - and advice from Cang Hai and Guenz and others to consult a doctor - I continued to work steadily with the team to finalise our Utopian plans. Guenz protested that it was useless work if Olympus could rouse up and destroy our little settlement at any time. Mary Fangold replied that it was not reasonable to sit about waiting for a disaster that might never happen. She used a phrase we had heard several times before -almost the motto of the Mars colony - 'You gotta keep on keeping on'.

Dreiser Hawkwood and Charles Bondi set up a secure Ambient group with Kathi Skadmorr, Youssef Choihosla and me. We discussed, at Dreiser's direction, the question of whether Earth should be informed of Olympus's movements.

We studied the latest comsat photographs. 'As you can see,' Dreiser said, 'its rate of progress is increasing, even though it is crossing rough territory.'

'It has withdrawn its exteroceptors from around this unit,' Kathi remarked. 'One deduction is that it requires them elsewhere to act as under-regolith paddles. Hence the abrupt acceleration.'

Bondi was busy measuring. 'Using the churned regolith as the base line, Chimborazo has covered ninety-five or ninety-six metres in the last Earth year. This is an extraordinary rate of acceleration. If it could maintain this acceleration rate - pretty ridiculous, in my opinion - its prow would strike the unit - let's see, well, hmm, it still has nearly three hundred kilometres to go, so ... well, we would have plenty of time - four years at the very least, even on that reckoning.'

'Four years!' I echoed.

Interrupting, Choihosla asked if Chimborazo left excreta behind on its trail.

'Don't be silly,' Kathi exclaimed. 'It is a self-contained unit, can't waste anything. It'll have excreta-eaters in under that sh.e.l.l.'

'The point of my question is - do we inform Downstairs or not? I'd like your answer, Tom,' said Dreiser. 'This doesn't have to go to Adminex. We five must say yea or nay.'

'They probably have the Darwin fixed on Mars,' I said. 'So they'll see this thing's hoof marks.'

'Maybe they have not maintained their telescope since the breakdown,' Dreiser said. 'Or, if they have, they may not be too quick to evaluate the implications of the tumbled regolith. What I mean to say is, they may just reckon we triggered a landslide of some magnitude.'

'We should inform Downstairs that ”the volcano” has s.h.i.+fted,' said Kathi. 'No other comment. We certainly don't inform them that we think Chimborazo has life, never mind intelligence. Otherwise they'd probably nuke the place -xenophobia being what it is.'

So that was agreed on, after more discussion.

Bondi said, wryly, 'You can't predict what they'll do down there. They may simply conclude we've gone mad.'

'They probably think that already,' I said.

A thousand questions poured through my mind that night, sometimes merging with phantasmagoric strands of dream. My mind was like a rat in a maze, being both rat and maze.

At the 'X' hour of night, I climbed from my bed and walked about the limited confines of my room. The question arose in my consciousness: Why was it that, in all the infinitude of matrix, mankind built itself these tiny hutches in which to exist?

I longed to talk with someone. I longed to have Antonia again by my side, to enjoy her company and her counsel. As tears began to roll down my cheeks - I could not check them, though she had been gone now for three years - my Ambient sounded its soft horn.