The Cage of Zeus (14 page)

“And tell them what—that the women are just as savage as the men?”

“Yes, and that even women can sexually threaten a Round. Isn’t it your job to ensure the Rounds aren’t reduced to Monaural playthings?”

“To tell you the truth, there’s a part of me that’s not so sure.”

“About what?”

“Maybe the best way to get the rest of the world to accept the Rounds is to openly promote the fact that the Rounds get along with the Monaurals here.”

“The people on Mars and Earth aren’t stupid,” Von said. “They’re bound to see through such a transparent PR stunt. Isn’t the reason why you had to come here in the first place because the Rounds and Monaurals couldn’t coexist? If they were able to simply get along in the first instance, you would have been able to conduct your experiments anywhere. But you couldn’t because you knew the two ideologies would collide.”

“Yes, but—”

“Don’t worry. The relief team and the Rounds are only engaged in a kind of play because, at the moment, they only recognize what’s good about the other. In time, they’ll lose interest and drift apart.”

“Do you think so?”

“I can see you’re overworked. You really should get away from the station sometime. You should come to Europa,” Von offered. “I’ll take you for a ride in the research submarine. One look at the ocean will help clear your mind right up.”

“Thanks. I’m impressed you’ve lasted as long as you have on that frozen rock.”

“Because of what’s underneath,” Von said. “When I think about all the life-forms yet to be discovered in that ocean, it gives me the chills. At times, I’ve even thought of all the creatures in that ocean as my children. Undiscovered, unnamed children. And I’m the one to find them and give them names. That’s a job I’d gladly give my life to.”

“You sound like you’re married to Europa,” Preda said teasingly.

“Yes, that’s right,” Von answered proudly. “We were betrothed after I fell head over heels in love with Europa’s ocean. I much prefer her to human men. Always faithful.”

“Indeed.”

The image of the microorganisms onscreen lured Kline, now comfortably mellowed by the bourbon, into a moment of reverie.

Maybe I will go to Europa after this is all over
, Kline thought.
Yes, I’ll take a long break and forget all the station’s troubles.

9

THE ROUNDS MADE
use of the central axis’s zero-gravity environment in much the same way the station staff used the central axis area as a relaxation room. Children used it as a playground, while others meditated there as the Monaurals did. The space was subdivided into two sections—one for children and one for adults.

Mare, the special district’s education supervisor, reported a fight in the zero-G zone to Fortia.

“At two years old, they like to roughhouse.” Mare was frowning onscreen. “I thought you should know someone was injured.”

“Any broken bones?” Fortia asked.

“Yes, but it wasn’t a child. It was one of the adults who stepped in to stop them.”

Mare had scolded them severely but wanted Fortia to reprimand the children as well so they would learn their lesson. Fortia agreed. Patrolling the residences and elsewhere in the special district was part of eir daily duties, and ey had been about to make the rounds anyway.

“Also, the second generation thinks it’s about time we used implant communicators,” Mare said.

“Like the Monaurals? Why would we need implants in a habitat as small as the special district? Our wearable devices suffice.”

“When something like this happens again, with implants we can send messages directly into the children’s ears.”

“No amount of yelling in their ear is going to make a difference if no one is there to stop them.”

“With the implants,” Mare said, “we can send signals directly to the brain to temporarily freeze the children’s motor functions.”

“We would be resorting to mind control,” Fortia said.

“I believe a sense of unity is critical, especially in as confined a society as ours.”

“As much as we’re in the position to supervise the district, we do not rule over it. We resolve our issues by talking. We have no need to rely on Monaural inventions.”

The only means of distance communication inside the special district were the stationary terminals used to communicate with the station staff and the wearable devices for personal use—indeed obsolete technology. Implant devices, on the other hand, were standard issue among Monaural researchers and security staff and were used not only for conversation but to access databases.

The Rounds were not authorized to use implants because of the Rounds’ role as medical test subjects. Doctors had decided that implants could skew the results of their experiments.

“Our databases are filling by the day,” Mare pointed out. “We’ll be able to increase search efficiency if we implement a neural connection system. The implants will also be useful for educating the children. If they develop a habit of looking up information anytime and anywhere for themselves, we can nurture and maintain their curiosity for knowledge.”

“Can we wait awhile? Once we begin colonizing Saturn, we’ll enter the second phase of experiments. We can submit a request to Kline for implants as a lifestyle modification then,” said Fortia. “Right now, we still rely on the Monaurals to keep the special district running. But if we can make this place a sovereign state, not just in name but in reality, and become truly independent, we’ll be able to change how we associate with the Monaurals.”

Fortia spent the next several days checking up on the workings of the special district. Ey spoke to the engineers in charge of maintaining the bioengineered plants, inspected the harvest conditions of the garden, and checked the operations of the recycling plant. Ey also visited the astrometrics facilities as well as the laboratories where the Rounds were conducting some independent biological and engineering experiments.

Fortia then went around to all of the residential units and met with each of the Rounds of the first generation and second generation. In doing so, ey was able to get a record of the general mood of the 150-plus adults and children of the community.

There was one thing that worried Fortia. Was Tei the only one trying to repair the strained relations between the Rounds and Monaurals, or were there others? Did people like Calendula and Tigris support Tei? And if so, why had they kept silent about it to em, the leader of the special district? Ey intended to find answers by analyzing the audio data ey’d gathered from speaking with each of the Rounds.

Fortia also visited the zero-gravity area in the central axis.

The adults-only section was quiet; several Rounds were meditating, floating balled up in a fetal position inside the dimly lit room.

The children’s section was also relatively quiet when Fortia peered in through the door. But when ey entered the room, the children swarmed around em and tugged at eir tunic. They whooped and hollered as they clung to and hung on eir arms.

Fortia’s wearable bleeped almost instantly; Fortia answered it. On the other end was a Round who’d been surveilling the scene from a hidden camera in the children’s section.

“I’m sorry. I’ll be there immediately to quiet them.”

“It’s all right,” Fortia said, gently patting the head of the tiny Round that had hurled emself at em in a bear hug. “Are they always like this?”

“Yes.”

“The children of the second generation tended to be more shy. How long has this been going on?”

“It varies, but the two- and three-year-olds are very active.”

“That’s good to hear. I’ll be there after I’ve played with them a little. Get your supervisors together.”

Recalling the time eir own children were born, Fortia spent some time playing with the children. Ey told them eir name and title and encouraged them to visit em anytime they wanted to talk about life in the special district. Guileless as the children were, they groaned and clung to Fortia when ey started to leave. One child was even teary-eyed, and Fortia had to go around appeasing each of them before ey could leave the room.

At the meeting, the five members in charge of education, including Mare, gave Fortia an update on the schooling of the third generation. All of the Round children were given computerized interactive lessons, allowing them to learn at their own pace. The five educators then instructed them in areas that couldn’t be covered online, such as socialization and interpersonal communication. Collaborative work, involving machine building and experiments and observations in the zero-G zone, was also part of those lessons.

Fortia didn’t notice any conspicuous problems with the third generation’s progress. While their academic achievements varied as might be expected, they were all satisfying the set standards.

The third generation encompassed a broad age group. The oldest Rounds were just short of adulthood, and the youngest were still babies. Since the Monaurals regulated the schedule of Round births, the Rounds could not procreate whenever and however they pleased. There were budgetary concerns to consider. The population could not be easily increased, owing in part to the limited availability of food, equipment, oxygen, and water in the special district.

The Rounds’ education was based on Monaural curriculum, covering three areas: science, medicine, and language. The science curriculum included mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronautics, information engineering, astronomy, geology, and planetary biology. The medical curriculum was comprised of medicine, biochemistry, and reproductive science. The only language requirement was English, and the Latin names given to the children were merely taken from a dictionary in the databases. Since a comprehensive database of non-English languages was available, for the most part, the Rounds were able to communicate with the Monaurals by using a universal translator.

Because the Rounds matured three times faster than Monaurals, they began their education at an earlier age.

Between the ages of two and a half and six, they were taught the fundamentals of living in space and basic science, medicine, and English. Unlike the schools on the planets, there were no summer vacations or extended holidays for the Rounds, who knew nothing of the world outside the special district. With a constant schedule devoted to classes and play, they were quickly able to accumulate knowledge and develop their critical thinking skills.

After completing their primary education, the children chose a specialization according to their interests and began their studies and practical training in their chosen profession. To the Rounds, the special district was their world. Everyone had a job with specific appointed duties, and aside from periods devoted to raising children, no one was allowed to laze around doing nothing.

Every person was crucial and everything inside the special district had a reason for existing. Otherwise, anything or anyone thought to be a waste of resources and energy had to be evaluated and eliminated.

After finishing their report on the children’s education, the supervisors moved on to the subject of the adult Rounds.

“I think we need to reeducate the second generation,” one of them said. “Since they’ve had extensive communication with the station staff, they’ve been exposed to the written and visual works brought into the station by Monaurals. Monaural paintings, literature, and songs contain stories with sexual distinctions not reflective of our society.”

“They insist they’re fully cognizant of those differences, but in the long term, I think we need to be wary of Monaural influences on our culture,” another added.

“Are you detecting any noticeable changes?” Fortia asked.

“Some have started to imitate the Monaurals and have begun to write stories and songs of their own. They’ve been writing love stories taking place in Round culture and composing songs about romantic relationships. Some of them describe relationships between Rounds and Monaurals. I hear these Rounds get together during their time off to share what they’ve written.”

“I don’t understand. Why would they create such things knowing what happened to Veritas?”

“Curiosity. Veritas was the only one hurt in the incident, and everyone else was a passive onlooker. Since any association with the Monaurals is forbidden, they’re probably trying to live vicariously through the stories.”

“What does Veritas say about all of this?” Fortia asked.

“Ey grins and bears it. Veritas doesn’t say anything to stop it nor to encourage it. Ey said ey’s grown used to being talked about. Anyone who wants to fantasize about associating with the Monaurals is free to go on doing so, ey said. What shall we do? Should we forbid their activities altogether or place restrictions on what they can write about?”

“Either way they’ll likely continue behind closed doors.”

“Yes.”

“Then let them be,” Fortia said. “We’ll require the Monaurals’ financial support for a while after we go to Saturn. If some of the Rounds are able to find some respite inside these stories, then so be it. Better that than to violate the rules and fraternize with the Monaurals in reality.”

“What if the stories influence others to emulate Veritas?” one of the other educators asked.

“Then they’ll have to learn the hard way by being hurt themselves.”

“We believe that reeducating the second generation might inspire works of art unique to Round culture,” another teacher said. “Stories and paintings and music for and by Rounds.”

“Art isn’t something to be bestowed. When the time is right, our society will naturally conceive an art free of Monaural influence. Have a little patience.”

“So we won’t take any action?”

“I think that’s advisable,” said Fortia. “But I’d like to know what all of you think.”

After about four hours of discussions with the education committee, Fortia returned to eir residence.

Ey went straightaway to the bedroom, without dinner, and threw eir weary body on the bed.

Jupiter was displayed on the screen taking up most of one wall in the bedroom.

That gas giant, banded with streaks of color, was a sight Fortia never tired of seeing.