The Tenth Planet (17 page)

With a considerable effort, Idris restrained the impulse to laugh. It was understandable that the Minervans had telescoped Earth’s history. But, Jesus Lenin strikes again! That was hard to swallow.

“Who are you asking me to lead?”

“The youth of Minerva.”

“All the youth of Minerva?”

Damaris tossed back her golden hair. “All the youth of Minerva who want to destroy this fossilized system of existence,” she said. “When you are released, Captain, travel the ways at night. You will find us. And if you are truly the Jesus Freak, you will help us. You will lead us to the creation of a Great Society. Now I must go … Will you lead us?”

“I will meet your Friends of the Ways. If they are worth leading, I will lead them to something. I cannot promise that it will be a Soviet commune. I can promise that it will be better than
Talbot’s Creed
and the static society you have now.”

“That is good enough for us,” said Damaris de Gaulle.

When she had gone, Mary said: “You are hellbent on destroying yourself, Idris.”

“No, love,” he retorted tranquilly. “I am hellbent on saving myself. Somehow, I and you are going back to Earth. You have a child in your belly, though you have not yet told me. He will walk on the soil of his home planet or I will die getting him there. Do you read me?”

“I read you,” said Mary Evans, her eyes suddenly bright. “I read you loud and clear.”

W
HEN
I
DRIS WAS
released after serving his term of ‘corrective treatment’, his freedom was made conditional. He was already resigned to the indefinite ban on any contact, other than chance meeting in a public place, with Zylonia de Herrens. But his release order contained other and more sinister restrictions.

He was released into the custody of Mary Evans, who was required to stand surety for his good behaviour. This meant simply that when he next transgressed—
if
he transgressed—Mary might suffer also. Two for the price of one. It was, he realised instantly, a kind of blackmail. Though no orthodox Minervan would have regarded it as such.

More sinister was the fact that he was required to report to the psychiatric clinic of Vorshinski Hospital every ten days for E.E.G. brain rhythm analysis and for subjective interrogation by a psychiatrist empowered to use a sophisticated kind of polygraph to determine whether or not his answers were truthful.

He was also required not to attend or address any public meeting or gathering—carefully defined as a group of not less than five people—without prior notice to and approval by the President of Vorshinski Council.

Most sinister of all, he was required until further notice (which probably meant for ever) to abstain from contributing to the genetic pool. Which meant, simply, that he was not allowed to fertilize any female.

But Mary was already pregnant. As soon as the fact were discovered—and it could not be hidden for very long—she would have to undergo compulsory abortion; and quite probably both she and Idris would be punished. Even apart from the ban on Idris, every pregnancy had to have prior approval, a fact of which Mary had been aware, though she had shut it out of her mind, probably because she desperately wanted to be pregnant by Idris. The Adam and Eve syndrome …

The fact that perfect birth-control was freely available would make the pregnancy look like a deliberate flouting of Minervan law.

One way or another, Idris realised, the Triple-T faction was going to be able to completely discredit the last Earth man. Time was on their side. Then any hope he might have entertained of peacefully persuading the Minervans to abandon their policy of psychological hibernation would be utterly ruined.

If anything was to be done about the situation, it would have to be done quickly.

Mary Evans had an apartment in Talbot City, uncomfortably near the home—if you could call a standardised living module a home—of Zylonia de Herrens. Idris had been offered a module of his own, ironically the apartment of the late Manfrius de Skun in central Vorshinski. It had been stripped of any possessions left by its previous occupant, and it looked pretty much the same as the other living units he had seen. But he would not take it. Though he did not believe in ghosts, he had too much respect and affection for the man who had brought him back from the dead to take over what had been his home and impose a new personality on it.

So he moved into Mary’s apartment. And, on the first night of freedom, because he had little to lose, he left Mary at home in bed, blissfully exhausted after a passionate love-making, and went to seek the Friends of the Ways.

The automated transport that connected the Five Cities was not unlike the underground railways that had once existed in such cities as London, Paris and Moscow. Except
that the monorail cars were open to the crystalline and pleasantly illuminated surfaces of the tunnels; and there were no guards, drivers, ticket collectors. The movement of cars from station to station was smooth, fast, almost silent, unattended and free. The monorail service operated automatically round the clock. In the arbitrary morning of the M-day, it carried manual labourers, skilled workers, technicians, bureaucrats, scientists to their posts. In the small hours, it still carried a number of shift-workers and late visitors but it also carried the Friends of the Ways. The Night People. The rebellious youth of Minerva who had made the public cars of the monorail system their own meeting place.

Idris boarded a car at Talbot. It was empty. The car stayed at Talbot station for a few moments. Then a taped voice said quietly: “Please do not board or leave this car. Please do not board or leave this car.” Then a buzzer sounded, and the car sped evenly along the tunnel to Vorshinski. The journey was not long. The Five Cities were separated from each other by only a few kilometres. Between one city and the next, there were two or three small request stops where the cars did not stop, though they slowed down considerably, unless a passenger pressed one of the red buttons that were placed near every seat.

The taped voice announced each sub-station in advance. “You are now approaching Talbot Farm … You are now approaching Talbot Hydroponics … You are now approaching Vorshinski Power …”

Because the cars were open, with only a transparent plastic screen at the front, there was the illusion of a warm, pleasant wind in the tunnel. Idris liked the invigorating feel of the artificial wind in his hair. It reminded him of the winds of Earth.

At Vorshinski Power, as the car slowed on its run through the sub-station, two figures came to the edge of the platform and vaulted neatly and expertly over the low sides of the car. They could have halted the car had they so wished. Each sub-station was equipped with request-stop buttons. But, evidently, they preferred this athletic and
somewhat dangerous way of boarding a car.

They were both very young—not more than about twenty-two by Earth reckoning.

“Hi,” said the girl.

The boy carried an instrument that looked like a mandolin. “We are the Friends of the Ways, Idris Hamilton. Welcome to our party.”

Before Idris could say anything, the taped voice announced: “You are now approaching Vorshinski City.”

The car stopped at Vorshinski. Three more young people boarded it, one of them a girl. They were obviously well acquainted with the two who had leaped aboard at Vorshinski Power. Besides the new intake of the Friends of the Ways, four middle-aged people—shift-workers probably—boarded the car. They viewed the young people with evident distaste and sat as far away from them as possible.

All four of them got off at Brandt Hydroponics.

The girl who had boarded at Vorshinski City came to Idris and kissed him on the cheek. “Hello, Earth man. Would you break somebody’s arm if you desired to possess me?” She laughed.

Idris was nonplussed. He did not know what to make of these youngsters.

A young man offered him a flask. “Drink,” he said. “You have found the Friends. The Friends have found you. Drink.”

“What is it?”

“The water of life. The drink of the Friends.”

In fact, it was kafra, the Minervan substitute for brandy. Idris took a swallow from the flask and handed it back. The young man also drank, then passed it to the others.

The car slowed down at Brandt Farm. Two more Friends jumped skilfully aboard.

“The androids who stepped out at Brandt Hydro will by now have reported that you are with the Friends,” said the young man who had offered the kafra. “One of them was my mother.”

“Why do you call them androids? They seemed quite
ordinary people to me.”

“Because they accept and do what they are told to accept and do. They have lost a little of their humanity.”

“Will it matter that they have reported what I am doing?”

The young man shrugged. “Not to us. Possibly to you … You, Idris Hamilton are regarded as a threat to society. We are tolerated as fools. Drink.” Again he offered a flask of kafra. “My name is Egon. You are my brother.”

“Thank you, brother,” said Idris with sarcasm. “Will you be my brother when they want to lock me up again?”

“Your brother now and for always,” said Egon. “You are our captain. You will tell us what to do.”

At Aragon City more Friends boarded the car. They brought more kafra, more musical instruments.

The boy who had the mandolin started strumming and began to sing a ballad.

At Chiang City Damaris de Gaulle stepped on to the car. “Captain Hamilton,” she said, “I love you. You are truly the Jesus Freak.”

I
T WAS A
long night. The monorail car went round the circuit of the Five Cities—Talbot, Vorshinski, Brandt, Aragon, Chiang—several times before Idris had finally had enough and felt it was time to return to Mary.

Before the party broke up, he had drunk much kafra and talked with many young people whose names and faces he could only vaguely remember. It was true that they saw him as a saviour, a Jesus Freak. They wanted him to pull a rabbit out of the hat, destroy the
status quo
and build an expanding society. But, despite the words of the ballad and the protestations of the Friends of the Ways, he knew that they did not seriously expect him to lead them back to Earth. Basically, they only wanted a greater freedom than the present rigid society of Minerva afforded.

But they were too weak to organise themselves effectively to do anything about it. Like children, they wanted someone they could trust to lead them. Like children, they wanted to be told what to do. But would they have the nerve to do what was necessary? Would they be resolute enough to use force—if necessary? Would they be prepared to seize key installations—the power plants, the hydroponics units, the farms—and hold the Councils of the Five Cities to ransom to achieve their aims? Idris looked at them, and doubted it very much.

With only a hundred Earth men, Idris knew that he
could have controlled the entire Five Cities complex. But not even with a thousand of the Friends of the Ways could he hope to force the Triple-T faction, the fossilised power structure, to allow Minervan society to enter an expansive phase. It looked as if
Talbot’s Creed
had achieved one thing, at least. It looked as if aggression, the love of adventure, the compulsion to go always one step further, had been successfully erased from the mind of man.

These effete young people simply wanted their Jesus Freak to perform tailor-made miracles. They didn’t want any mess, they didn’t want any conflict. They just wanted a painless, bloodless revolution. A miracle.

As the night wore on, Idris noticed that two or three of the original Earth children he had taken aboard the
Dag
for Mars had joined the Friends of the Ways. At first he felt glad. Here was hope. But after he had talked to them, he became depressed. They too, had succumbed to the subtle Minervan programming. When he had suggested that it might be. possible to capture and hold the key personnel of one city and use that advantage to intimidate the administrations of the remaining four, they recoiled, horrified. Violence was out. Not just killing, but any kind of violence. They, too, wanted the Jesus Freak to walk upon the face of the water.

Idris returned to Mary Evans, dispirited, tired, a little drunk. She was deeply asleep. Subtle odours of sex still lay about her. He woke her gently and made love. But this time it was a totally mechanical action, aimed only at providing some sense of release, aimed only at providing oblivion. He said little, but she sensed his mood and responded as best she could. She knew that her body was not strong and young, as Zylonia’s must be; but it was enough for her to be held by a man of Earth and know that he held her close because she, too, was of Earth. It was a great consolation.

The following morning he had an early visitor, an oldish man who seemed to have an uncanny resemblance to Manfrius de Skun, and who introduced himself as Harlen Zebrov.
He asked to talk to Idris privately.

“Can you not say what you have to say in front of my wife?” he demanded brusquely.

It was the first time he had referred to Mary as his wife. He had done it deliberately. It caused Harlen Zebrov to wince, and also caused Mary’s eyes to glisten.

“Here on Minerva, we have time-pairing, as you must know, Captain Hamilton. The term wife has no meaning for us. And, incidentally, Mary Evans is not even your registered time-partner. However, that is not important. To answer your question: our discussion may certainly take place in the presence of Mary Evans. But I do assure you there are certain things it is safer and wiser for her not to know. However, the decision is yours.”