Ursula Le Guin - Paradises Lost

The largest figure by far was those who wished not to land on the planet at all, and to continue the voyage out as soon as possible. Over two thousand people registered immediately as Voyagers.

This angelic vote was so strong that there was no real question of what the final decision would be. Discovery would not stay in orbit around its Destination, would not turn back to its Origin, but would go on to Eternity.

Urgent arguments about exhaustibility of supplies, about wear and tear, about accident and entropy, swayed some Voyagers; but the majority continued steadfast in their intention to live in bliss and die to Bliss.

As this became clear, the number of people who registered as willing to stay permanently on the planet began to grow, and kept growing. It was clear that the angelic majority, eager to continue its sacred journey, could not be kept tethered to the planet for very long. Few of the angels opted even to make an exploratory visit to the planet’s surface. Many, following the teachings of the archangels, tried to persuade their friends that leaving the ship was unthinkably dangerous—not a bodily risk, but a sin, a temptation to seek unneeded knowledge at the cost of the immortal soul.

Gradually the choices narrowed, became absolute. Go out into the dark and be left there, or continue on the bright and endless voyage. The unknown, or the known. Risk, or safety. Exile, or home.

Throughout the year, the number of those who shifted their registry from Visitor to Outsider grew to over a thousand.

In the latter half of Year 163, the yellow star that was the primary of Shindychew’s system appeared to the eye at magnitude -2. Schoolchildren were taken onto the Bridge to see it in the “window.”

The education curriculum had been radically revised. Though teachers who were angels were unenthusiastic or hostile to the new material, they were required to allow “lay teachers” to present information about what the Destination might be like. The VRs of Old Earth—Jungle, Inner City, and so on—had allegedly deteriorated, and had been destroyed; but many educational films were salvaged, and others were found in Storage awaiting use by potential settlers.

Those who registered as Visitors or Outsiders formed learning groups, in which they studied and discussed these films and instructional books. Dictionaries were much called upon to settle misunderstandings and arguments over terms, though sometimes the arguments went on and on. Was a ravine a need for food, or a place where the floor went down into a hole? The dictionary offered gorge, gully, gulch, canyon, chasm, rift, abyss…A low place in the floor, then. When you need food badly, that’s ravenous . But why would you need food badly?

“No. I don’t intend to leave the ship.”

Luis stared at the Registry, where he had just discovered Tan Bingdi’s name on the list of Voyagers. He looked around at his friend, and at the screen again.

“You don’t?”

“I never did. Why?”

“You aren’t an angel,” Luis said at last, stupidly.

“Of course not. I’m a pragmatist.”

“But you’ve worked so hard to keep the…the way out open…”

“Of course.” After a minute he explained: “I don’t like quarrels, divisions, enforced choices. They spoil the quality of life.”

“You aren’t curious?”

“No. If I want to know what living on a planet surface is like, I can watch the training videos and holos. And read all the books in the Library about Old Earth. But why do I want to know what living on a planet is like? I live here. And I like it. I like what I know and I know what I like.”

Luis continued to look appalled.

“You have a sense of duty,” Bingdi told him affectionately. “Ancestral duty—go find a new world…Scientific duty—go find new knowledge…If a door opens, you feel it’s your duty to go through it. If a door opens, I unquestioningly close it. If life is good, I don’t seek to change it. Life is good, Luis.” He spoke, as always, with little rests between the sentences. “I will miss you and a lot of other people. I’ll get bored with the angels. You won’t be bored, down on that dirtball. But I have no sense of duty and I rather enjoy being bored. I want to live my life in peace, doing no harm and receiving no harm. And, judging by the films and books, I think this may be the best place, in all the universe, to live such a life.”

“It’s a matter of control, finally, isn’t it,” Luis said.

Bingdi nodded. “We need to be in control. The angels and I. You don’t.”

“We aren’t in control. None of us. Ever.”

“I know. But we’ve got a good imitation of it, here. VR’s enough for me.”

After recurrent episodes of illness, Navigator Canaval Hiroshi died of heart failure. His wife Liu Hsing with their infant son, and many friends, all the staff of Navigation, and most of the Plenary Council, attended the funeral service. His colleague 4-Patel Ramdas spoke of his brilliance in his profession, and wept as he finished speaking. 5-Chatterji Uma spoke of how he laughed at silly jokes, and told one he had laughed at; she said how happy he had been to have a son, though he had known him so briefly. One of his students spoke last, in the place of the child, calling him a hard master but a great man. Hsing then went with the technicians, accompanying his body to the Life Center for recycling. She had not spoken at the service. The technicians left her alone for a moment, and she laid her hand very gently on Hiroshi’s cheek, feeling the death-cold. She whispered only, “Goodbye.”

In the year 164, Day 82, Discovery entered orbit around the planet Shindychew, Hsin Ti Chiu, or New Earth.

As the ship made its first forty orbits, probes sent down to the surface of the planet provided vast amounts of information, much of which was unintelligible or barely intelligible to those receiving it on the ship.

They were soon able to state with certainty, however, that people would be able to do eva on the surface without respirators or suits. There was a growing body of evidence that the planet might be accessible to long-range inhabitation. That people could live there.

In the year 164, Day 93, the first ship-to-ground vehicle made a successful landing in the area designated Subquadrant Eight of the planetary surface.

To leave the ship: to go through the airlock into the lander, that was a comprehensible thing—terrifying, fiercely exciting, absolute, an act of transgression, of defiance, of affirmation. The last act.

To leave the lander: to go down those five steps onto the surface of the planet, that was to leave comprehension behind, to lose understanding: to go mad. To be translated into a language where no word—ground, air—transgress, affirm—act, do—made sense. A world without words. Without meaning. A universe undefined.

Immediately perceiving the wall, the blessed needed only wall, the side of the lander, she backed up against it and at once turned to hide her face against it so that she could see it, the wall, curving metal, firm, limiting, see it and not see the other, the no walls, the vast.

She held her baby close against her, his face to her breast.

People were there with her, beside her, clinging to the wall, but she was only vaguely aware of them, even though they were all huddled close together they all seemed apart and distant. She heard people gasping, vomiting. She was dizzy and sick. She could not breathe. The ventilation was failing, the fans were far too strong. Turn down the fans! A spotlight shone down on her, she could feel the heat of it on her head and neck, see the glare of it in the skin of the wall when she opened her eyes.