The Chromosome Game (11 page)

‘You really mean it, don’t you?’

Eagle deflected this. ‘I’ve been examining the letters we get from our parents.’

Trell said, ‘I can’t understand why they don’t come and see us. I only know them through the letters we get back.’

‘The reason,’ said Eagle dispassionately, ‘that they don’t come and see us is connected with the fact that the letters don’t come from our parents in any case.’

‘What the heck are you saying?’

‘I’m saying the Computer writes them.’

You’re kidding.’

‘The Computer writes them because it has a graph plotter. You know what a graph plotter does?’

‘It draws graphs.’

‘Which means it can write … A different handwriting for each of us. Different style and carefully chosen phrases that fit the letters we think we’re writing to our folks.’

‘Where are our folks, Eagle?’

Eagle’s eyes changed focus. ‘A long, long, way away.’

‘Can you explain what you mean by that?’

‘Not yet. I shall one day. Some of the letters written by the Computer are angled. You must have noticed.’

Yes.’ Trell took a crumpled letter out of his pocket. ‘A lot of the letters try and make out that the black guys around here aren’t real people. The girls, too. Helen — the one who goes around with Krand — she’s not real, according to the Controller.’

Eagle gave a curt nod. ‘But Krand knows she is. Just as real as your girl Kelda.’

‘Of course.’

‘No “of course” about it. If people get letters from their parents they believe what their parents say.’

‘Even something like that?’

‘Yes, if they had no other adult’s word to go on.’

Trell said, ‘Then what about you, Eagle? You must have got faked letters. So why didn’t you —’

‘— I knew they were faked.’

‘How?’

‘You’re going to be embarrassed.’

‘Risk it.’

‘Trell, I’ve always felt a kind of warmth coming from somewhere — a personal thing, close to me, yet at the same time far away. I knew my dad couldn’t be writing things like … well, you know what’s in the letters. I’ll tell you something: You and Kelda are growing up faster than any of us.’

‘I think Kelda and I love each other. Isn’t that incredible?’

‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that you always did? — which was why you didn’t get influenced by all that crap churned out by a mechanical pen?’

‘You know what? — I can’t figure you out, Eagle. You have some kind of close relationship with your folks, even though they’re not around. I don’t feel that way.’

‘You don’t have to. Do you?’

‘You know what Kelda says, about you? — She says that you’re the only one that’s had a regular childhood, and she says you’re growing up at a speed that’s kind of natural.’

Eagle grinned. ‘There’s not much that’s unnatural about you and Kelda!’

‘But you do know what I mean?’

‘Yes. Yes I do.’

‘Your eyes kind of glow when you say things like that. I guess that must sound embarrassing.’

Eagle said, ‘I don’t see that either of us have anything to be embarrassed about. I’ve seen your eyes “glow” as you call it, whenever Kelda glows back!’

‘I don’t know whether to think of you as an uncle or a nephew or what, Eagle! But you’re different, that’s for sure.’

Eagle said, ‘Listen. If I’m an uncle and a nephew at the same time I’ll tell you what I think: You know what I was really doing while I was playing around with those bits of Lego?’

‘Really you were thinking.’

‘Right. I was assembling a model. A puzzle. Except I didn’t know I was doing it.’

‘A model of what?’

‘This community.’

‘I don’t see how you can model a community with a load of Lego bricks.’

‘That’s just it — I couldn’t. Something doesn’t fit. And you know what’s missing? — A leader. We need a leader. Trell. We’re all the same age. There’s no one to keep us united. We just have a computer that writes phoney letters. What else does it do that we don’t even know about? Those letters are sheer detonators for violence.’

‘I know.’

‘And it runs underneath all sorts of things, Trell. Already some of the blacks are getting a bad time.’

‘Okay. I agree. So who leads?’

‘You.’

‘Why?’

‘You mustn’t mind what I’m going to say next.’

‘Okay. Say it.’

‘You and Kelda are soon going to be a couple of adults.’

‘I don’t mind your saying that but I think the leader should be either you or Krand.’

‘No. He and I are Specialists. Haven’t you noticed how a lot of us are starting to specialise? Take me. My interest is pure science. You don’t put a scientist in charge of people unless you’re raving mad. Then Krand. Well, he’s a philosopher —’

‘— Aren’t you?’

Eagle said airily, ‘Oh, they cross over. But Science and Philosophy take a long time to … to —’

‘— to converge.’

‘Yes. That’s the word. Converge.’

‘You always write words down like that?’

‘If I don’t know them, yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I think you and Kelda will arrive at that in your own way. I have a feeling you might have already.’

Trell ducked this but went on, ‘Tell me more about the Specialists.’

‘You know most of them. Nembrak and his crowd — they invent things. That’s going to come in useful. Then Cass. He specialises in logic. It’s useful but it doesn’t cover everything.’

‘You mean, like it doesn’t cover the Law of Relativity?’

‘Like several things. It’s too slow. But I watch his chess moves. Better than Hallow’s.’

Trell grinned. ‘That’s because Hallow ‘specialises’ in the twins!’

Eagle didn’t follow this up. ‘If you look behind you you’ll see some Baseball specialists in the nets.’

‘I don’t care much for those guys.’

‘We have to accept them. Yet they don’t accept Scorda.’

‘Who does?’

‘You’d better ask Krand that.’

Trell glanced at the Flight Simulator. ‘He’s about thirty thousand feet in the sky right now.’

‘Is that so?’

‘He thinks he is, anyway,’

‘All the same, ask him sometime. The left hand side of the cockpit gives him rather a good view.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of the individual who’s sauntering over towards us now, for instance. The one with no eyebrows.’

Trell said, ‘Have you made up your mind about that guy too? — You mean Sladey, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I’ve made up my mind.’

‘What’s it tell you?’

‘I think he’s like a fluorescope. One day we’ll both be able to see right through him.’

Trell started to move away as Sladey approached. ‘What do I do? Switch on the X-ray machine, over in the Nursing Section?’

‘If I were you,’ said Eagle, ‘I’d keep up your squash games with Scorda. You won’t need an X-ray plate for what happens then. Scorda is the key to Sladey’s little mind. You know what a Combination Lock is? … Trell, turn up the volume of the cassette player.’

Trell slammed the knob hard over. ‘Sure I know. I go to the movies same as you. What’s the pay-off, better make it fast.’

‘Those two — Scorda and Sladey — they have the combination to each others’ minds. And you better be around when the lock unclicks.’

‘So why does the safe open in the squash-court?’

‘Because it’s when he’s playing squash that Scorda thinks of himself as a regular guy.’

‘You’re right. He becomes a big-mouth. Better break this up.’

*

It wasn’t exactly a panic Trell felt.

But there’s this feeling inside that something is ever so slightly wrong somewhere, can’t even identify the feeling I’ve got, here in the night, pulse is not exactly fast but it’s thumping, and somehow all the other guys in Dormitory Alpha seem unnaturally quiet, but it’s not peaceful-quiet, they kind of sense something … a heck of a lot of dreaming going on, don’t like it.

What has changed?

Certainly there’s nothing screwy on the surface. Somehow that spooks me all the more, everyone behaving just the same on the
outside
, but there are murmurings within. Nobody voices it, and I can hear that pinging again, very faint but it’s there.

And I’m sweating …

Trell turned over, almost feverish, in the bed, caught sight of the sliding door leading out to the corridor.

It was moving, very slowly.

And the sweat went salt on Trell’s lips.

‘Trell?’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Me. Krand.’

‘For heck’s sake you gave me the scare of —’

‘— Better keep your voice down, Trell.’

‘What gives?’

‘I want to talk to you.’

‘It’s three a.m.’

‘I know that.’

‘Okay.’ Trell pulled his jeans over his pyjamas, followed Krand out into the corridor, deftly slid the door to. ‘Where do we go?’

‘Cubicle E.’

‘What about mikes?’

‘They’re dead when the Teaching Machine’s switched off.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yeah. Nembrak checked. He’s a bit of a hand at electronics.’

‘I know that.’

‘Also, E can’t be seen by the Controller’s cameras because the cranes can’t elbow around the corner. It’s the only one.’

‘Smart.’

They shut the door of the booth.

Trell said, ‘Okay, what happened?’

‘When you were talking with Eagle.’

‘At the Disco counter.’

‘Right.’

‘And you were in the Flight Simulator.’

‘Only I wasn’t flying it.’

‘You’re kidding. You looked like you were in another world.’

‘I was, but not that one. I was watching, listening … until you played that crazy cassette.’

‘Sorry. Had to. Trying to drown —’

‘— I guessed … Trell, you couldn’t see, but I had the port-side hatch open.’

‘The baseball side?’

‘Check. You know this guy Sladey?’

‘I never talk to him. He’s so …’

‘Effete.’

‘Good word, Krand. Describes him exactly.’

‘Plays at being British —’

‘— Gee, I just realised. He came crawling up on Eagle and me, must have been after you saw him. I didn’t realise what a grand-stand view you had. I think Eagle did, though.’

‘No one was meant to notice. I was watching something … well, not at first, to be honest. After I’d climbed in I really was up there flying. You know how I get totally —’

‘— airborne!’

‘Wasn’t going to say that. I seem to go in a kind of trance. Takes quite some deal to make me come out of it … Then Scorda wanders in, stands leaning against the nets. Something on his mind, something I do not like, Trell.’

‘I thought Scorda was okay until what happened yesterday.’

‘I thought everyone was okay, Trell. And, like me, you probably overlook Scorda’s … I do not know what you’d call it exactly … his hostility … You let it go whamming right over your shoulder because he plays a good game of squash.’

‘He’s the best.’

‘Maybe he is. But you won’t find either of the twins offering him a game … Anyway, I gradually become aware of him, then this Sladey ambles into the Recreation Area, real casual, but I can see that it’s prearranged, him and Scorda. So I engage the automatic pilot on the simulator.’

‘It has that? — An autopilot?’

‘Sure. Everything except an egg-timer.’

‘Go on.’

‘Trell, a couple of nights ago you were — mind if I say this? — You and Kelda were watching the stars, it seems, and you thought you were alone … Save your fury, Trell, it’s kind of repulsive for people to sneak up on people’s sweet-talk —’

‘— It wasn’t just sweet-talk, either. Which of these morons were —’

‘— Scorda. And he starts telling that slob … keep forgetting his name —’

‘— Not surprised. You said Sladey. David Niven spin-dried.’

‘— Starts telling Sladey you and Kelda intend to run some kind of a dictionary program on one of the micro-processors, only not telling the Controller.’

Trell said contemptuously, ‘I’m surprised our squash-star understood.’

‘Trell, we got to try not to underestimate people. Scorda learns well, even if it is by rote, wouldn’t say much for his imagination —’

Trell said angrily, ‘For imagination he seems to borrow from other people.’

‘But he does understand about programming, accessing data, that sort of thing. Trell: Don’t do it. Don’t run that program.’

‘You know what we have in mind?’