Stewards of the Flame (9 page)

Jesse clenched his fingers. “There’s got to be some answer,” he insisted. “Laws aren’t like this everywhere. This is just one colony.”

“But it’s an advanced colony,” Peter said. “We here are forerunners, Jess. You know in your heart that when our technological advances spread, so will the system derived from them: first to more colonies and ultimately, perhaps, to Earth itself. It would not make any difference if we changed our laws. The trend will be in favor of more like them.”

“Oh, God, Peter!” Jesse burst out. “The way you’re putting it, we’d end up with a galaxy full of vaults. Life can’t be meant to end that way. There has to be a better goal than that.”

“We think so, too,” Peter said. To Jesse’s amazement, he smiled as he said it. Suddenly they were all smiling—in dead earnest, untouched by fear or despair. It was if the meaning that had always eluded him were not an illusion, as if they somehow had an inside track on it.

Carla, her normal spirits restored, caught his hand and squeezed it. “We go in for this sort of discussion,” she said. “It’s a bit like jumping in over your head—you develop a taste for it. We’re alive, as you said, Jesse! We don’t worry about the future. We’re living.”

Was it simply courage he saw in them, then? Jesse wondered. They had a form of it he’d never encountered—they’d led him to an impassable abyss and stopped just short of the edge. They had stopped on his account; he sensed there had been more to say. He found himself wishing that he were fit to follow them.

~
 
11
 
~

Late the next afternoon Carla sought Jesse on the porch, where he sat reveling in onworld sunlight. “I’m going now,” she said, “in Bernie’s plane. You can wait for Peter.”

“I’d rather come with you,” he said, torn between desire to prolong what might end soon in any case, and an irrational wish to stay at the Lodge until the last possible moment.

“Bernie hasn’t room. We will see each other again, Jesse—at least I hope so.” She smiled, but it seemed a struggle.

Jesse rose and put his arms around her. “Carla, you know I want to see you. You know I want more than that. Is there any good reason why we have to wait for more?”

“Yes,” she said gravely. “You’ll know soon enough, one way or the other. Oh, Jesse, I—” She pulled away, to his dismay blinking back tears. “Please don’t ever hate me, however things turn out.” Before he recovered enough to answer her, she was running down the path toward the dock.

Jesse followed slowly. The plane took off, circling the Lodge and disappearing into a cloudless sky. One by one others went; he sat at the water’s edge and watched them. It was like being aboard a flagship, he thought, when all the shuttles were leaving: there were people you’d served with, been close to, and they were going separate ways now; you would probably never see them again. You did not yet know where you yourself would be sent. And there was a centeredness to the base, simply because it was a base, and you clung to that. You clung to what it stood for, and to the memories.

It was almost dusk; evidently Peter planned to fly by moonlight. When Jesse saw him on the path, he started toward the dock. But Peter came to him instead. “I’m not leaving till tomorrow,” he said, sitting down on a flat rock beside him. “I can get you transport, but I was wondering if you might want to stay on for a while.”

Reprieve, Jesse thought, amused by his own surge of gladness. “Overnight, you mean?” he asked.

“Longer than that. Maybe quite a bit longer.”

Jesse shook his head. “I can’t impose on your hospitality,” he said with reluctance. “Or somebody’s hospitality—I’m still not clear about who owns this place. What is it, a co-op of some sort?” He wondered, suddenly, whether he might be allowed to buy in; it would be worth it even for a short stay onworld.

Peter hesitated, searching for words. “Does the term ‘safe house’ mean anything to you?” he asked slowly. “That’s the closest thing I can think of that you might have come across in bigger colonies.”

Turning, Jesse stared at Peter in sheer astonishment. “Maybe we don’t have the same vocabulary,” he said. “If this were what I know of as a safe house, I wouldn’t have been invited here.”

“You might. I’m a quick judge of character. So is Carla.”

“Would it be out of line to ask who you need to be safe from?” It was just not possible, he thought, that they were on the same wavelength. A safe house would imply covert operations of some sort. This colony had no nations, no political conflicts; its government was monolithic, unopposed, and in the eyes of virtually all citizens, benevolent.

“We like to explore ideas, as you know,” Peter said. “We have more such ideas than you’ve yet heard. Some of them are—unpopular. Some might even be considered irrational.”

“But League law guarantees freedom of speech,” Jesse protested.

“Does it? Or does that apply only to mentally competent citizens, those not in need of help from Med therapists?”

Jesse went cold. He should have known, perhaps, considering his own experience; but he’d assumed his view of the Hospital was biased. “I’ve heard of places where psychiatry’s abused, where hospitals are used as political prisons,” he acknowledged. “But you said the problem here’s not political.”

“Well, Jess, it works a little differently here,” Peter said. “It’s true there are no political uprisings, and we’ve no wish to start one. What I’m getting at is a bit more subtle. The Med government isn’t corrupt. The worst thing about the authorities is that they’re sincere. They really believe they’re helping everybody. Some of us happen to disagree.”

“And this is the only sort of place you can talk about it?” Good lord, he thought, were there microphones in restaurants? Was that why Carla had switched subjects so abruptly the first night?

“We can talk anywhere, except on phones, with reasonable caution. But we often do more than talk, you see.” Peter’s gaze was suddenly very penetrating. Jesse knew the key point had been made.

“God,” he said. “Are you—recruiting me, Peter?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Peter admitted. “One of the things I do in the world outside is keep my eyes open for people who might be interested.”

Jesse stared out across the bay, letting the shock settle. Despite all the speculation he’d done about these people, despite even their acceptance of criminal liability for the burial of a friend, such a thing as this had never entered his mind. Now . . . well, yes, the fire was there, the intensity; he could see them as ideological fanatics. But activists? Undercover operatives? They weren’t hard enough, not unless they were new at the game. “Interested in what?” he asked slowly.

“In the power of the individual human mind. In the primacy of that, not only over oppression but over all the well-meant limits society imposes on it. And in a future Med policy can’t dominate.”

“I’m for that,” Jesse declared. “I’d be interested if I were free to make a commitment. But Peter, if Fleet will take me back I’ve got to go.”

“We don’t ask for a commitment that would interfere,” Peter said. “You’d make binding pledges, yes, but you wouldn’t be bound to this planet. As I explained last night, the real problem affects the whole galaxy.”

“I’d be expected to act—elsewhere, you mean? As an agent, a courier?”

“Not exactly. Our offworld contacts deal mostly with getting around this colony’s monetary restrictions—hacking and so forth; I doubt if that’s your thing. You wouldn’t be taking on any specific responsibilities by coming in with us, at least not now. If later you were asked to assume one, you’d be free to say no.”

“But I’d be committed as long as I’m here.”

“Not in the sense you mean, except with regard to secrecy. We aren’t quite the sort of group you see in the average action vid.” Peter spoke slowly, with deliberation. “We don’t expect anyone to renounce loyalties or attachments, except to this planet’s government, which you have no allegiance to in any case. It’s more a matter of outlook. There are certain premises you’d find yourself questioning, possibly some you’ve not questioned before. Some might prove hard to give up. The alternatives we offer might prove frightening. All we’d ask of you is willingness to learn.”

“It’s just philosophy, then? Reshaping of minds?”

“More than that. We act on our beliefs, develop skills outsiders don’t have.”

“What sort of skills?”

“For one, controlling our bodies to the extent that medical intervention’s rarely necessary.”

“Through fitness, you mean.” This didn’t ring true; the assortment of food eaten at the Lodge, unlike what he’d been served in the city, was hardly the fare of health fanatics.

“No,” Peter said. “We control our bodies’ reactions with our minds, consciously, just as you control your legs with your mind when you decide to walk.”

“That’s not possible,” Jesse objected.

“So the Meds tell you. Need I point out that they’ve got a vested interest in making you believe it?”

“You—you boycott them, then?”

“Insofar as we can without getting caught. There are physicians among us, and whatever real treatment we need, short of limb or organ replacement, is given in covert healing houses. We take steps to escape the medication we’d otherwise receive for emotional reactions, alleged risk factors, and other conditions that interfere less with living than therapy would.”

“I’m happy to hear it. What I’ve seen so far in this colony makes me think the priority given to health precautions over enjoyment of life has been carried to ridiculous lengths.”

“The public’s sense of values is distorted,” Peter agreed. “It’s true everywhere; historically, whenever health authorities succeed in overcoming some actual problem, such as contagion, they are left with a bureaucracy that must justify its existence by medicalizing more and more aspects of simply being human. Here, where it’s combined with the natural tendency of government to encroach on personal liberty, that process has been unrestrained. We can’t combat it directly. We’ve developed other ways of ensuring our own well-being. There’s a price—the initial training’s not a pleasant process. But I think you can see we’re none the worse for it.”

Jesse nodded. Their self-possession, their vitality, their enviable ability to have fun—whatever they’d been through must be worth experiencing. He’d give a lot to learn their secrets. “I guess you know it’s a tempting proposition,” he said. “But when it comes to activism, well, I’d have to know more of the specifics.”

“You don’t expect me to tell you, do you?”

“No. Of course you can’t; I see that. But then we’re at an impasse, aren’t we? Because there are limits to what I’ll do, even in a good cause.”

“We don’t plan to turn you into a hit man, if that’s what you mean,” Peter said. “You’ve seen too many of those vids, Jess.”

“Not just vids. On Earth—on many worlds—such things happen. I’m not wholly ignorant of undercover work. Sooner or later, there’s a line to be crossed. I’m not saying no one ever needs to cross it. I just don’t see myself in that role.”

“Do you see us in it?” Peter asked quietly.

No, of course he didn’t; that was the absurd element in the whole business. He simply could not conceive of Peter, or any of them, turning to violence. According to reason, he could not judge; he’d known them only five days, after all—but through some uncanny sixth sense, he knew.

If not the usual sort of operatives, then, what were they? Jesse pondered it, chilled by the suspicion that came to him. Not assassins, but angels of mercy; the burial must not have been an isolated incident. He’d given them the benefit of the doubt last night, but as a general rule they could hardly beat the ambulance to unscheduled deaths.

“I suppose I do see part of what you’re doing,” he said with genuine regret, “and I can’t go along with it. I respect your conviction—but as I said last night, I don’t favor assisted suicide. Not even in the extreme situation you’ve got here.”

“Suicide?” For an instant Peter seemed puzzled; then he smiled. “We don’t favor that either, Jesse. Is that how it looks, that we save people from the stasis vaults by dumping them prematurely into the bay?”

“It would be logical. I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer the bay to the Hospital, if I were a terminal case. But I don’t think rushing death’s any more justifiable than prolonging it.”

“If you’d argued otherwise last night, we wouldn’t be inviting you to join us.” Peter paused briefly before admitting, “As you’ve guessed, burials at sea are quite frequent. One of our jobs is to facilitate natural death for people who are already dying. Wholly natural—no drugs, no intervention. Nothing you’ll find objectionable, at least not in the ethical sense.”

“In what other sense might I object? Not the legal one,” Jesse declared.

“No. But there are other aspects that may be upsetting. Nursing the dying isn’t fun. What’s more, sometimes people argue for natural death in principle while insulating themselves from the reality of it. We don’t let you do that.”

It fit. They were absolutely uncompromising; in their work as in their discussion, they’d permit no self-delusion. “I’d actually tend dying patients? But I’m not skilled. It’s not my field.”

“You’re looking at it as Med-dominated culture does—putting death off in a corner to be dealt with by professionals, as if it were some sort of abnormality. If you believe it shouldn’t be denied or abolished, you must back up what you say.”

“I could have a go at that, but I’ve got no aptitude—for comforting the sick, I mean.”

“You’d be adequately trained. That’s a small part of what you’d learn, of course. Caregiving’s not our main focus and no one has to keep on participating, though many of us do from time to time.”

Peter didn’t seem bothered by it. Yet he was a man sensitive to others’ feelings, and presumably to their suffering. That issue hadn’t been mentioned, Jesse realized. “No drugs—not even painkillers? Or are you in the drug business, too?”

“I’d rather not answer that right now. It gets into some areas I’m not free to discuss.”

Well, yes, Jesse thought. It would. He already had far more information than an outsider should be given. Were they that sure of him, or merely imprudent?