The Non-Statistical Man Read online

  “But don’t think I have any sympathy for Human Developments; the whole Project is on the wrong track. I came to get away.

  “Back home it’s the same old thing that has happened a hundred times before. You can’t move from one city to another without a thousand signatures on your papers; you can’t plan a project any more complex than a backyard garden without consulting twenty-five authorities and experts.

  “Oh, they’re all so very generous and helpful. And we understand that it is necessary to obey regulations in order to conserve and rebuild the world. But we’re in prison, just the same.

  “It got so I couldn’t stand it any longer. Some of my friends joined the Moon colonies; some have gone to Mars. But I didn’t have money enough for either. Becoming a Control-colonist with Human Developments Project was the only way I could think of to get out of prison.”

  “Do you think it will be freedom,” said John, “fighting the jungle with your bare hands?”

  “Yes,” she said with fierce intensity. “Because no one’s going to care where I go, or what I do, as long as I don’t hurt my neighbor. I’d be willing to bet that, in the long run, the only survivors of Earth’s culture will be the descendants of the Control-colonies on Planet 7. The only way you can build men and women capable of conquering a planet is to give them a problem and let them figure it out, with complete freedom of action.”

  “Isn’t that what Earth is doing?” said John. “And in a more civilized way? We have the problem—to make Earth habitable again, to create a stable civilization. Aren’t we doing that with a greater cooperation than hus ever been attained before?”

  “No! That’s the same old fallacy that has wrecked n hundred nations. Controls, restrictions, bureaus—these things do not mean cooperation; they meun force. And every application of force is one less freedom for some man.

  “I don’t need anybody to tell me what my job is to be; I’ll find my job. I don’t need anybody to tell me where is the best place to live; I’ll find it for myself. And so will millions of others, when they get a chance. And when we get through we’ll have done a far better job than all the boards and experts ever dreamed of doing. If I can’t do it on Earth as a free citizen, I’ll do it on Planet 7 as a Control!”

  He was a little embarrassed by the vehemence of her talk, but it was like a glimpse into a new world. A world he somehow suspected he had long wanted to see.

  “Tell me why you came,” she said.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “I haven’t any reason at all for being here; I’ve got to find one. I’ve got to find some purpose for going to Planet 7.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t find it that way. Purposes are something you live with for months and years. All the years of your life. It’s not something that comes overnight or with a moment’s dreaming.

  “We’d better go back,” she said. “Someone might miss us if we stay too long. Let me go first, and you follow in a few minutes.”

  “Wait.” He put a hand on her arm. “Will I see you again?

  She hesitated and smiled up at him. “All right. Tomorrow. The same time. Be careful. They mustn’t find out”

  4

  The indoctrination class next day was endless. Bronson seemed to take particular delight in pointing out the irrevocability of their decision—reminding that there would be no turning back from the course that had been set.

  When discussion-period came, John was suddenly on his feet. “What about those who find that they are unable to conform?” he demanded. “What about those who refuse to abide by the rules of the Project?” '

  “No one is wasted,” said Bronson. “Rebelliousness is a trait that has been noted through the ages; we have colonies where its value is now being determined. I may say that preliminary investigations show the value of the rebel to society have been vastly over-estimated.”

  “But what do you do with them?”

  “There are jungle-colonies consisting only of rebels, nonconformists, the individualists who believe they can make their way alone. You may appreciate that the members of this colony do indeed have a rough time of it. Miraculously, however, even they manage to survive; and we shall learn much from their survival.”

  “It’s inhuman,” cried John. “You can’t sentence men to an existence like that for the rest of their lives, because they find they have made a mistake in coming here.” “Everyone has volunteered,” said Bronson, “to contribute the remainder of his life and energies to Human Developments. We need the contribution of all kinds. And you must not forget: the rebels get what they want. That is the prime rule of the experiment, to give a man what he wants and find out what he can do with it.”

  John sat down, his chest burning and a smothering in his throat. He felt the curious glances of the others in the room as if he had questioned the oracle of the ages.

  Attention turned away from him. Other discussion became a meaningless buzz while he sat there thinking. It made no difference to him, he had no intention of rebelling; he was just along for the ride. And yet, if this were so, why did his chest bum and the palms of his hands grow hot and moist?

  The name of Lora kept ringing through his mind, and he did not know why all his whirling thoughts centered about the name of this girl. It was because she was so sure, he thought, and he was so unsure.

  Somewhere she had found exactly the answer she wanted of life. In this she was like Doris. But how different were her answers from those of his sister! And between the two he could find no answer for himself to still the endless whirling questions in his mind.

  Lora.

  The name was still in his mind, hours later, as he sat in the stateroom watching the slow swing of stars across the port. The door from his sister’s room burst open suddenly, and Doris strode in and stood before him.

  “Martin knows about it!” she exclaimed. “Why in the world did you pull a fool stunt like that?”

  He paled. “Like what?” he said.

  “You know what I’m talking about. Sneaking down to the Controls’ deck, meeting that girl. I think it’s disgusting, John—utterly disgusting and unbelievable. Martin said he wasn’t going to do anything about it because he didn’t think harm would come of that one visit. But you’ve got to promise that you won’t do such a stupid thing again.

  “Who is she? Where did you ever meet her?”

  He stood up, his face white and cold. “Doris,” he said thinly, “you will please keep your damned nose out of my business!”

  He was still trembling when he reached the rendezvous on the engineers’ catwalk much later. He arrived first and waited a long time thinking that she had decided not to come or had been prevented from coming.

  He didn’t know how they had found out about his meeting with Lora, and he didn’t know if he were being spied upon at this moment. In weariness and spiritual exhaustion he didn’t care what they knew, or what they did.

  She came at last. It seemed as if her slow, cautious opening of the door consumed an eternity and when she was inside on the platform she remained standing quite still.

  “Lora.” He reached out and took her hand and kept it between his own. It was cold as if she had been afraid of something for a long time.

  “They know about us,” she said; “did they tell you?”

  He nodded in the dim light. “I thought maybe they had kept you from coming.”

  “They warned me not to do it again, but they didn’t try to prevent me.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head as if in violent protest against something of which he had accused her. “I guess it was just because I promised.”

  “Why did you promise?”

  “I don’t know!” Suddenly her hands gripped his arms and she pulled herself against him, her cheek flattened against his shoulder.

  “John—John—why did it have to be this way?”

  His hands pressed against her back as if to stop the shaking of her body. He stroked
the hair beside her forehead. “We’ll go back,” he said; “we’ll make them take us back.”

  They stood in the silence and the stillness as if trying to press out this moment to eternity. He thought of it: their standing in the cold and sulphurous chamber with the life of the ship about them. And beyond that the eternal night of space through which plunged the slim tube that encased them and held back the cold death outside.

  How far they had come to find this moment. He raised her chin gently with the edge of his hand. “I don’t know anything about you,” he said. “Tell me. I want to know everything that has ever happened to you, every sunrise you have seen, and eyery leaf that has fallen near you.”

  She shook her head and tried to di'aw away as if the magic had passed. But he held her.

  “There isn’t time for that,” she said. “There’s only time to wonder why we couldn’t have been bom in the same world. You could never understand the harshness of mine—the one I’ve lived in and the one I’m going to. I would suffocate in yours.”

  “We’ll find a new one, then,” he said fiercely. “We’ll find one on Earth that will hold us both. I won’t let you go.”

  Sudden light from the corridor burst upon them as the heavy door flung open. They clung together spotlighted for an instant and broke apart as Bronson came toward them. Other figures hovered in the doorway.

  “You’re making it harder for yourself,” said Bronson. “I’m sorry you didn’t take my advice, John; it will be necessary to confine you to quarters for the remainder of the trip. Please come along now.”

  He felt Lora’s hand stiffen momentarily in his, and then release as she moved away.

  “We’re going back,” John said to Bronson. “I demand that you send us back to Earth on the next returning ship.”

  Bronson shook his head. “I guess you didn’t understand me. There’s no going back; no going back for any of us. In Human Developments you only go forward.”

  The central continents of Planet 7 are dry desolation where nothing but the foot-long sand monsters exist. But near the poles are belts of verdure almost a thousand miles in width. At the boundary the ugly sand color shades into living green, and impenetrable forest flourishes beside the barren waste.

  All the planet’s moisture finds its way to the hot rivers and lakes of these polar regions. Here the squalid settlements of native life are found; here Earth men have established their Human Developments Project.

  In this fantastic jungle, every conceivable Utopian scheme has been laid out, tried and tested for practicability. Projects planned for a thousand years of time measure the effects of environment and the ability of man to conquer the universe by first conquering himself.

  Conceived nearly seventy five years ago by Dr. James Rankin, a government sociologist, the project was first considered a wild impractical scheme to get public money to back fuzzy-headed theories. Rankin proposed the idea shortly after the final settlement of the Great War. Out of the conflict had come the discovery of the over-drive; the first flush of enthusiasm sent out expeditions to the Alpha system, where Planet 7 was found, and explored, and mapped. But that was when lethargy began to set in; world-weariness sapped human energies, and the reports were shelved, construction of star-ships dwindled off ...

  Rankin proposed the idea that it would take a new kind of man to survive upon the Earth, but no one knew what kind of man that would be, or if he could be found. Moon-colonies and Mars-colonies had been set up, but something was lacking there . ..

  Rankin’s idea took hold, and finally, spontaneous acclaim forced its acceptance upon the government of the world; the leaders seemed to sense that it was the last spurt—there wouldn’t be another if this opportunity were permitted to die. Rankin lived long enough to see the first tiny colony estabished in the forbidding jungles of a far world, encircling an alien star.

  Theoretically, it might have been done on some other world in our own solar system, but space-travel made all these worlds seem too close; there was something in the psychological appeal of a planet wheeling around another star—something that proclaimed here was a truly new beginning. ..

  In three quarters of a century, the Project had increased to cover nearly all of the northern polar band with its various colonies. There was still controversy over the merits of Human Developments. Controversy that was hot and vehement. Demands were made that secrecy be stripped from the Project, and its record and processes be made public. But volunteering as a colonist remained the only way of gaining such information.

  It was not a desire to hide its activities from the world, the Project leaders said, but prior knowledge of the activities there had to be kept from contaminating the thinking of those who wished to volunteer as the years passed. Government inspectors were allowed to investigate for evidence of mistreatment or mal-practice; they always gave the Project a clean bill of health, and there,, had never been a lack of volunteers. Those chosen were the result of careful screening to obtain proper specimens for the various environments and sociologies being tested.

  John Carwell watched the planet slowly fill the port, replacing the star-specked blackness at which he had stared through five long days of imprisonment.

  The ship Sashed across the barren central zones. He watched the wind-tom wastes and crags, which faded gradually into the green of the polar region.

  Then quite abruptly the ship was enveloped in mist, spearing through the perpetual cloud-blanket that rotated slowly about the polar bands. John stared at it, never moving from his position at the port, his hands clasped behind him, and head bowed low. There was mist, and the occasional flash of green that broke through. Rain cascaded down the sides of the vessel, foretelling the greeting that Planet 7 would hand them as they emerged from the ship.

  He watched it and hated it. That was the only emotion he could find within him. He hated Planet 7; he hated Human Developments. But most of all, he hated himself. He should be taking some wild and violent action to defend his position and win him Lora.

  But he didn’t know what such action might be. He couldn’t tear at the very walls of the ship, and he couldn’t smash his white fist into Bronson’s implacable face. It wasn’t that kind of a fist; he was trapped and bound.

  The door opened quietly behind him. Doris came up quietly. “We’re coming in. Have you got everything ready?”

  “Everything but me.” He nodded toward the jungle now visible through the slanting sheets of rain. “I’ll die out there,” he whispered.

  “That’s not where we’re going,” exclaimed Doris. “You’ve seen the pictures; you know what Alpha Colony is like. We’re not going to that jungle. That’s where the Control-colonies are.”

  She tried to bite the words off even as she said them. John’s face became even more bitter.

  “They’ll send her out there. What kind of fanatics are they?”

  “Remember: it’s what she wants,” said Doris kindly. “She volunteered as a Control. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing at all.”

  “I’ll find something. I’ll make something to dot”

  5

  They never felt the wetness of the storm. A covered gangway reached out from the protection of the terminal, and clamped its warm mouth to the hull of the spaceship. Through it the passengers moved into the dry pleasantness of the terminal building. John did not get a glimpse of Lora; his group was herded quickly away under Bronson’s supervision.

  At the opposite side of the building they climbed into a bus that sped them across a paved highway splitting the Jungle. Unreality increased for John, as die car nosed through the curtains of rain. It was like going deeper and deeper into a dream—so deep that he might never wake up.

  After an hour’s ride they slowed. As they made a sharp turn he caught a glimpse of a vast, shining bubble that seemed to shoulder aside the jungle. Its gentle curvature hinted at staggering vastness. Then they halted at another terminal building at the edge of the bubble.

  There was no talk from any o
f his companions. They marched machine-like into the building, as if they had already consigned away all will and initiative. But he sensed that actually they were as stunned as he by the impact of arrival at their final destination. It had been adventure and daring when they signed their names to the contract binding them to Planet 7 forever; it had been so far away then. Now John and Doris were shown to adjacent apartments once again. He sat down on the luxurious bed and patted it with finality. “So now we’re supermen,” he said.

  The bitterness of his voice cut off any response that Doris might have made. She turned away and walked to the windows, drawing aside the expanse of curtains. She gave a gasp as she looked beyond.

  “What is it?” Then John saw beyond the window also.

  He saw the landscape whose impact was like the sound of some sweet chord struck softly on a great keyboard.

  He got up slowly and stood beside Doris. It was ancient Greece; it was an English countryside, the great forests of old Germany. "

  “It’s worth it,” said Doris. “It’s worth it, John. We’ll never have to fight this world.”

  There were no streets, only footpaths crossing the grassy expanse. No mechanical vehicles could be allowed to break that scene. The. buildings, the houses—they belonged. The whole scene would have been faulty if any one had been removed.

  Statuary as glorious as the Age of Pericles was spotted on the vast lawns. Beside this, Earth’s cities as John remembered them were but great slums.

  “It’s our home,” Doris murmured, barely whispering. “We’ll never have to leave it; we’ll never have to be tired again.”

  There was some strange mood upon her, which he had never seen before, and which he did not understand. It seemed as if he were watching her shed a burden, which he had never known she carried.

  But his own could not be dropped. Somewhere in the jungle beyond the great transparent dome that housed Alpha Colony was Lora, unprotected and in savage surroundings.

  John was called early next morning for the expected interview with Dr. Wamock, director of Alpha Colony. He was faintly shocked by the initial appearance of the director; Wamock looked like anything but the head of such a group.