The Colonists Part 2

They sat at the desk. "You want to be a colonist," said Ashby. "You say you want to settle forty seven light years from Earth for the rest of your life. And our preliminary psycho tests indicate you have scarcely a vestige of the basic qualities required. Why do you insist on the full examination?"

Jorden smiled and shook his head honestly. "I don't know exactly. It seems like something I'd enjoy doing. Maybe it's in my people--they liked to move around and see new places. They were seamen in the days when there weren't any charts to sail by."

"It's certain that this is a situation without charts to sail by," said Ashby, "but I hardly think the word 'enjoy' is applicable. Have you thought at all of what existence means at that distance from Earth, with no communication whatever except a s.h.i.+p every eight years or so?

Qualifications just a trifle short of insanity are required for a venture of that kind."

"I'm sure you don't mean that, Dr. Ashby," said Jorden reprovingly.

"Perhaps not," said Ashby. His visitor's calm a.s.surance irritated him, as if _he_ were the one who knew what a colonist ought to be. "I see by your application you're an electrical engineer."

Jorden nodded. "Yes. My company has just offered me the head of the department, but I had to explain I was putting in an application for colonist. They think I'm crazy, of course."

"Does taking the examination mean giving up your promotion?"

"I'm not sure. But I rather think they will pa.s.s me up and give it to one of the other men."

"You want to go badly enough to risk giving up that chance in order to take an examination which will unquestionably show you have no qualifications whatever to be a colonist?"

"I think I'm qualified," said Jorden. "I insist on being given the chance. I believe I have the right to it."

Ashby tried to restrain his irritation. What Jorden said was perhaps true. No one had ever raised the point before. Those previously rejected by the preliminary tests had withdrawn in good grace. It seemed senseless to waste the time of a test pit and its large crew on an obviously hopeless applicant. On the other hand, he couldn't afford to have Jorden stirring up trouble with the Colonization Commission at this critical time--and he could guess that was exactly what Jorden's next move would be if he were turned down again.

"Our machines will find out everything about you later," said Ashby, "but I'd like you to tell me about yourself so that I may feel personally acquainted with you."

Jorden shrugged. "There's not much to tell. I had the usual schooling, which wasn't anything impressive. I had my three year hitch in the Service, and I suppose that's where I began to feel there was something available in life which I had never antic.i.p.ated. I suppose it sounds very silly to you, but when I first put a foot on the Moon I felt like crying. I picked up a handful of pumice and let it sift through my fingers. I looked out toward Mars and felt as if I could go anywhere, that I ought to go everywhere.

"The medicos told me later that it was a crazy sort of feeling that everyone gets his first time out, but I didn't believe them. I didn't believe it was quite the same with anyone else. When I got out to Mars finally, and during my one tour on Pluto, it seemed to get worse instead of decreasing as they told me it would. When I got out I took a job in my profession, and I've been satisfied, but I've never been able to get rid of the feeling there's something I'm missing, something I ought to be doing. It's connected with everything out there." He lifted a broad hand and gestured to the horizon beyond the windows.

"Perhaps your career should have been in the Service," suggested Ashby.

"No. That was good enough while it lasted, but they didn't have anything I wanted permanently. When I heard about the proposed colonization on Serrengia that seemed to be it."

"Your application indicates you are not married."

"That's right," said Jorden. "I have no ties to hold me back."

"You understand, of course, that as a colonist you will be expected to marry, either before leaving or soon after arrival. Colonial life is family life."

"I hadn't thought much about that, but it can't be too bad, I suppose. I presume my choice would be quite severely limited to a fellow colonist?"

"Correct."

"There is a story about my third or fourth grandfather who was given a girl to marry the night before he sailed from his homeland to settle in a new country. They had seventeen children and were said to be extraordinarily happy. My family still owns the homestead they cleared.

I was born there."

"It can be done, but it doesn't conform closely with our currently accepted social mores," said Ashby hopefully.

"I'm sure that won't stand in my way. If there's a woman who's willing to take a chance, I certainly will be."

"There's one more thing we have to know," said Ashby. "What are you running away from? Who or what are your enemies?"

Jorden laughed uncertainly. "I'm sorry, but I'm not running away from anything. As far as I know I have no enemies."

"_All_ colonists are running from something," said Ashby. "Otherwise they would stay where they are."

Jorden regarded him a moment in silence, then smiled slowly. "I think you are going to have occasion to revise that thesis," he said.

"A great deal of history would also have to be revised if we did," said Ashby. "At any rate, let's go down to the test pits. I'll show you what's in store for you there, and you can further decide if you insist on going through with it."

The laboratories of the Inst.i.tute of Social Science were spread over a forty acre area, consisting mostly of the test pits where experimental examination of proposed colonists was being conducted. Ashby led his visitor to the ground floor where they took a pair of the electric cycles used for transportation along the vast corridors of the laboratory.

A quarter of a mile away they stopped and entered a gla.s.sed-in control room fitted with a number of desks and extensive banks of electronic equipment.

"This almost looks like a good sized computer setup," said Jorden admiringly.

"We use computers extensively, but this equipment is merely the recording and control apparatus for the synthetic environment established in the test pit. Please step this way."

The control room was empty now, but during a test it was occupied by a dozen technicians. It was a highly unorthodox procedure to show a prospective colonist the test pit setup before examination, but Ashby still had hopes of shunting Jorden aside without wasting the facilities on a useless test.

They moved to an observation post and Ashby directed Jorden's attention to the observation lenses. "We cleaned out here this afternoon," he said. "A Captain of the Service last occupied the pit."

Jorden looked up inquiringly. "Did he--?"

"No. He didn't make it. Tomorrow morning you will be given a preconditioning which will set up the basic situation that you have traveled to Serrengia and are now established there in the colony. We will begin the test at a period of some length after establishment there, when difficulties begin to pile up. Other members of the party will be laboratory staff people who will provide specific, guiding stimuli to determine your reaction to them."

"Are they there constantly, night and day?"

"No. When you are asleep their day's work is over and they go home."

"What if I wake up and find the whole setup is a phony?"

"You won't. We have control beams constantly focussed upon the persons being tested. These are used to keep him asleep when desirable, and to control him to the extent of preventing him doing physical harm to himself or others."

"Is that necessary?" said Jorden dubiously. "Why should anyone wish to do harm?"

"The Captain, whom we released today, was pushed to the point of suicide," said Ashby. "We find it _quite_ necessary to a.s.sure ourselves of adequate control at all times."

"How can you set up the illusion of distance and a whole new world in such a comparatively small area?"

"It _is_ illusion, a great deal of it. Some is induced along with the initial preconditioning, other features are done mechanically, but when you are there you will have no doubt whatever that you are a colonist on the planet Serrengia. You will act accordingly, and respond to the stimuli exactly as if you had been transported to the actual planet. In this way, we are sure of finding colonists who will not blow up when they face the real situation."

"How many have you found so far?"

"None."

Jorden was shaken for a moment, but he smiled then and said, "You have found one. Put my name down on the books."