New Writings in SF 19 - [Anthology] Read online

  Crouching, feeling exposed and vulnerable in the long aisle, she stared through the fronds in the direction of the desolate wailing and presently she saw them, six heads bobbing above the plants as the Runners trotted along an aisle at right-angles which would intersect theirs at a point some thirty yards ahead. She held her breath as they reached the intersection, wailing in a dismal, spine-chilling ululation; then they came into full view as they jogged across the gap ahead, and for some reason they turned, wheeled in unison like Jeremiah’s pigeons, and came jogging down the aisle directly towards her...

  She jumped to her feet, David beside her. ‘Run! I’ll hold them off,’ he snapped, turning to face the Runners who accelerated on seeing the couple; their wailing rising to a banshee shriek of anticipation and triumph. They were dressed in drab overalls and their bare feet pattered on the wet concrete floor as they raced forward with wide, mad eyes and slack, screaming mouths.

  Jillie scrambled across the low wall and ran splashing over the hydroponic fields, the tangled roots catching at her feet. She lost a shoe but stumbled on. ‘Come on, David!’ she cried, glancing over her shoulder and seeing the fair man tear himself loose from a struggling mob and climb the wall to follow her across the field. The high roof echoed the yells of their pursuers and soon David was at her shoulder, gripping her elbow and urging her on.

  ‘We can make it to the central shaft,’ she panted. ‘There’s a hatch ...’ David did not reply, but pointed away to their left as he ran.

  Her eyes had been fixed on the thick column in the steaming distance, the shining tower which rose from among the hydroponics and disappeared through the ceiling; but now she glanced in the direction he indicated.

  A harvester was approaching.

  A huge, trundling rectangle of steel hoppers footed by flashing blades, it spanned the entire width of the tank, suspended from the ceiling and supported also by the guide rails which capped the tank walls. Groaning and chattering, it flung an emerald cataract of sliced leaf and shoot into the vast hoppers as it rumbled inexorably towards them.

  ‘Keep going. We can make it!’ shouted David.

  Jillie struggled on, sobbing now; both her shoes were gone and the coarse ponic roots were slashing cruelly at her feet. The harvester was close; she tried not to see the long, clashing blades flashing viciously in the hard artificial light. Above the din of grinding machinery she heard faint cries of alarm from behind. Something unyielding struck her shins and she fell forward and screamed once, involuntarily. She lay with her hands to her ears. The ground felt hard. Dry.

  ‘It’s all right, Jillie. Get up.’ David’s hand was on her arm; he was drawing her to her feet. Trembling, she stood, leaning against him.

  They were in an aisle, outside the tank; she had fallen over the boundary wall without seeing it. The harvester was level with them and she watched it in hypnotised fascination as it reached the Runners caught in the middle of the field.

  Apparently their dementia had not altogether impaired their presence of mind. Five men flung themselves flat in the ponics. The sixth, however, backed away from the blades, holding out his arms as if trying to ward them off; his mouth was open but no sound could be heard. Suddenly he whirled about and tried to run. The blades caught him just above the knees.

  Horrified, Jillie glimpsed a legless, twisted body hurtling backwards into the hopper, then David was dragging her away.

  ‘Quick!’ he shouted above the din of machinery. ‘They’ll be after us as soon as the harvester’s gone.’ He began to run, gripping her wrist.

  She stumbled after him and they arrived, breathless, at the central shaft. David spun the wheel and swung the hatch open. A gust of hot, foetid air blasted their faces. ‘Inside, quick!’ he urged. ‘I’ll shut the hatch behind you and try to get back to the exit stairs!’

  She paused inside with her foot on the first rung while the fierce updraught flung her loose dress over her head. ‘Aren’t you coming?’ she asked indistinctly. Holding on to a higher rung with one hand she dragged the wet, clammy material from her face and regarded him anxiously.

  His expression was a curious mixture of fear and longing; he was looking at her legs. ‘The shaft’s open to the Atmosphere Up Top,’ he muttered nervously, refusing to meet her eyes.

  ‘Don’t be a damned fool, David,’ she snapped. ‘There’s an upcurrent; you can see that. Come in and start climbing.’

  A chorus of cries decided him; the Runners had resumed the pursuit. He swung himself into the shaft and began to follow her.

  They climbed for some time, hand over hand in the deepening gloom until the light from the open hatch was a tiny disc far below. The foul air was stinging Jillie’s nostrils and eyelids; she closed her eyes and climbed on, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible. Once she glanced down to see David’s head bobbing against the dim circle of light, then she closed her eyes again, hard, trying not to think of the terrifying drop below.

  They had passed several hatches before she felt it safe to stop, spin a projecting wheel and step out into the brightly-lit corridor beyond. She turned and assisted David through the hatch, he slammed it shut, then they leaned against the wall to recover. They were in a corridor of Level 12; people passed, glancing at them curiously. The place was reassuringly normal.

  At last David spoke. ‘That’s the last time you go Down Below,’ he said shakily. ‘Up Top is the place for women and children. Make sure you stay there in future.’

  Impressed by his concern for her she asked about the Runners.

  ‘It happens from time to time,’ he replied. ‘A group of ponic workers go berserk. A sort of hysteria gets one and others join in. I’ve seen twenty men running about. Just running and screaming. We tried taking them Up Top and showing them the sky, but it only made them worse. The cure is sedation for a day or two.’

  ‘What would they do?’ Jillie asked, and her body betrayed a thrill of fearful, pleasurable anticipation. ‘If they had caught me, what would they have done?’

  David stiffened. ‘They would have killed you,’ he replied coldly. ‘Just that and nothing else. They don’t like women, Down Below.’

  * * * *

  An hour later they knocked on the door of Jeremiah’s room.

  ‘Just let me do the talking,’ David was telling her. ‘I don’t want this business to get fouled up immediately because you two are on friendly terms. At first, we keep it impersonal. Then, if necessary, you come in with the womanly sympathy. OK?’

  ‘Right.’ Jillie, who had been somewhat effervescent during the last few minutes in reaction from the pursuit, subsided. The door swung inwards and she gazed coolly at the stooping figure beyond. ‘Hello, Jeremiah,’ she said in carefully neutral tones.

  ‘Jillie!’ cried the old man in pleasure. ‘How nice to see you. I’ve missed you this past week. And you’ve brought your boy-friend too. That’s good. Come in ...’ He stepped aside to allow them to enter. ‘Sit down, sit down...” He dragged chairs about, vaguely.

  ‘Ah, Jeremiah.’ David spoke in businesslike tones before the other two could start gossiping. ‘This is in the nature of an official visit. I represent the Housing Committee. My name’s David Bank-’

  ‘But you are Jillie’s boy-friend?’ queried Jeremiah anxiously.

  ‘Er ... yes, but-’

  ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, David. Too few young men nowadays will even look at women. Jillie’s a fine girl. She deserves a husband. When are you two getting married?’

  ‘We’re not,’ stated David flatly.

  ‘Oh ...’ Jeremiah glanced from David to Jillie and back again. ‘I see...’ he murmured. ‘You’re a Stabiliser, I take it?’

  ‘I am.’

  In the awkward silence which followed Jillie cast her thoughts around for something to say. Jeremiah had suffered a disappointment; he looked on her as a daughter— or granddaughter—and she knew that her happiness was important to the old man. Her gaze fell on the table in the corner. ‘What’s wrong with
that pigeon?’ she asked. ‘Why isn’t it outside with the others?’

  Jeremiah crossed to the table and returned with the bird; the breastplate was open exposing an intricate mass of delicate machinery.

  ‘It caught its wing getting in last night,’ he said regretfully. ‘It can’t seem to fly properly.’

  David was staring suspiciously at the skylight. ‘I take it you have an airlock there?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. The birds open the outside hatch themselves, then when they’re all inside the lock, I let them into the room.’ The old man was regarding David with growing dismay.

  ‘How big is the airlock?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know—about four cubic yards, I guess.’ The old man’s eyes dropped.

  ‘What! Do you realise that every time you open the hatch you let four cubic yards of Atmosphere into Festive?’

  Jeremiah looked up again. ‘Into my room,’ he corrected. ‘And I’m still alive, am I not?’

  ‘You damned old fool!’ David burst out. ‘You’ve probably knocked ten years off your life!’

  ‘Ten years,’ repeated the old man softly. ‘That’s a long time, isn’t it? But how can you be sure of the figures? How do you know how long I might have lived otherwise? In fact, how do you know the Atmosphere is poisonous?’

  ‘Instruments, of course. The radiation count. We take readings ... often. Often.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘I’m not sure. The Council takes care of all that. Damn it, we’re not all specialists.’

  Jeremiah smiled. ‘And the Council consists entirely of men, does it not?’

  ‘What if it does ? The figures can’t lie.’

  ‘I wonder what women would have read into those figures,’ Jeremiah speculated, ‘had they been made generally available.’ He regarded David quizzically.

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘I’m getting at the fact that, for all we know, it might be perfectly safe to go Outside. I’m getting at the fact that men are scared to go Outside, more so than women. We’ve lived inside so long, the thought of the Atmosphere frightens us all to some degree.

  ‘So why not maintain the status quo? somebody says. Why not give people to understand that the Atmosphere is still radio-active, so that those men in charge, who are scared of the fresh air, can still govern from their cosy little air-tight chambers? Why not form a Stabilisation Party, devoted to cutting down the birth-rate?’

  ‘That’s not the only purpose of the party,’ David objected.

  ‘Go on, Jeremiah,’ urged Jillie.

  ‘You see, David,’ the old man continued, ‘Jillie welcomes this notion. It fits in with her instinctive idea of possibility. Now I want you, just for a moment, to imagine something ...

  ‘Imagine a community, totally enclosed and, for the time being, totally self-supporting. Its original inhabitants began their lives underground but with the passing of generations the increased population forced them above ground level, but building in the same method, totally sealed from the outside air, because to breathe that is death. They build upwards, because the island of their community is small. Raw materials quarried from beneath the land and surrounding sea become more difficult to obtain, yet the population still increases. Imagine Festive.

  ‘Imagine, now, the resultant attitude of mind. The outside air is poisonous. The community is incapable of much further expansion. The original food factories cannot be extended—lack of materials and knowledge. Everyone, men and women alike, agree to the solution. The birth-rate must be restricted.’

  ‘Women agreed?’ queried David sceptically.

  ‘Oh, yes; they agreed at that time. All this is hypothesis, remember. But let us suppose that this system works and the community becomes stable. But lurking at the back of everyone’s mind is the sure knowledge that machinery does not last for ever; that one day in the near or distant future the air purification plant will break down; or the food factory, or the electricity system. One day there will be a breakdown to an extent which, with available knowledge and materials, cannot be made good.’

  The small room was silent as Jeremiah paused to let this fact sink in; David started nervously as a minor quake caused the lights to flicker. Jillie’s gaze was fixed on the old man’s face. They had never spoken together on this subject before, but she felt she knew what was coming next.

  At last Jeremiah continued. ‘There was a thing, once, which used to be called Nature. It had a habit of taking its course, I believe they used to say ...’

  ‘So Nature has reappeared in man-made Festive and taken over. She is trying to force the community to expand and burst out of its confines before it is too late. Man’s restriction on conception is countered by multiple birth. Women have become aggressively sexual, without realising why. Men have retreated to the lower levels of the community, preaching Stabilisation with logical tongues. Women have moved, intuitively, to the top levels, because that is nearer to the Outside...’

  Jeremiah looked hard at the young man. ‘Does that fit, David ? You visualise the men cowering protectively about the falling machines, while the women long for the fresh air? Does our hypothetical community sound a little like Festive?’

  David’s face was white; he glanced at Jillie and she flinched at his expression. ‘I’ve never heard such a load of crap in my life,’ he said stonily. ‘It’s fortunate for you that you’re a friend of Jillie’s.’ He was forcing himself to speak steadily and Jillie realised with acute sympathy that logic had been countered with superior logic; male supremacy was threatened by a man ...

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you believe,’ said Jeremiah quietly. ‘I’ll never live to see the change.’

  ‘It’ll matter to you when you’re shut off from the sky, old man!’ David’s voice had risen; he was hitting back unthinkingly. ‘When you can’t fly your birds any more because you’ve got three rooms built above you. And that won’t be long from now, you can be sure.’

  From the stricken expression on Jeremiah’s face, Jillie knew that David had made his point.

  * * * *

  Jillie trotted along the crowded corridor of Level 8 savouring, as ever, the tingling excitement of male proximity. This was her favourite of all corridors; where men and women mingled in equal numbers without the sullen animosity of the lower levels or the frustrated femineity Up Top. Every now and then she would brush against an incautious man with a gay cry of ‘Sorry!’ and feel again the all-pervading thrill of physical contact. On this corridor, she was not ashamed of her actions; all women did the same and the men seemed to expect it. If only the men would do something about it, she thought, and hurried full tilt, but this time accidentally into a man who did do something. He held her at arms’ length, firmly.

  ‘Sorry!’ she said brightly, then she saw his face. ‘David!’ she gasped.

  He had been avoiding her, apparently, for over a week. She had called him at work and they had said he was busy. She had tried his room, knocking without response. After a few days she had given up, deciding sadly that what little had been between them was over, in the manner of most such affairs. But now he seemed to want to speak to her.

  ‘Hello, Jillie,’ he said in studied, neutral tones, still holding her nevertheless, as though afraid she might run off. ‘It’s been a long time. Where can we talk?’

  In her consuming desire for him she found it difficult to speak. ‘There’s ... There’s a rest room along here,’ she stammered at last.

  Fortunately the room was empty; they could speak freely. She took a chair but David still stood awkwardly, leafing through a month-old copy of Festive Life at a writing table.

  ‘I see ponic production is up,’ he said absently. ‘Er ... I’m sorry about last week, Jillie.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘I mean what I said to Jeremiah. I’m sorry. I lost my head. Maybe ... Maybe he’s right. I don’t know. I wish I did.’ He looked at her at last. ‘I can’t get the Housing Committee to reverse its decision,’
he said, flushing. ‘But I’ve managed to delay things for a while.’

  Jillie had recovered herself and a touch of ancient Woman asserted itself. ‘What’s brought about this change of mind?’ she asked, acidly.

  ‘Er ...’ he hesitated. ‘I got a sight of Council records. It’s just conceivable Jeremiah was right. About falsification of public information, I mean. About radiation counts, and so on ...’

  ‘Just what do you mean, David ? What did the radiation readings say?’

  ‘There were no readings. There was nothing.’ His voice betrayed perplexity. ‘Nobody’s taken a radiation count for over a hundred years! Why ? Why, Jillie ?’

  She took a breath. ‘Because, Down Below, they’re satisfied with the status quo and always will be. Like Jeremiah said, so many generations have lived indoors that they’re scared to go out. They like things as they are.’