Marion Bradley - Survey Ship

Fontana, small and dark and delicately made, with sleek dark hair and thick freckles, was in bed with Huff. They had been exploring each other’s bodies with curiosity and good-natured affection for more than a year now, in their leisure moments; but both were conscious of the admonition against pairings or permanent commitments, and both had been seen, often enough, with others.

Now, lying at ease in the afterglow, she smiled at him, a pixie smile, and said, “I’m going to miss you, Huff. I’m going to miss this—” and she touched him, playfully. He chuckled.

“Sure of yourself, aren’t you, girl? Well, I don’t blame you; you’re at the top of the class, you’re sure to be on the crew.”

Fontana smiled and shook her head. “Not sure at all. Only whatever happens, we’re going to be separated. It’s scary, Huff, they blend us together so well, teach us to care about each other, up to a point, and then, after graduation, no two of us are ever likely to work together again. Maybe ten of us — six this year, I heard somewhere — will stay together on the Ship. The rest of us — well, scattered all over the universe. But you’re just as likely to make Ship as I am. You’re a good navigator—”

“Not half as good as Ravi.”

“And you’re skilled in linguistics—”

“Jimson and Janet and Mei Mei and Smitty are all better than I am.”

Fontana shook her head. “No way they’re going to take Jimson. Peake is sure to be chosen, and they won’t take any couple. No more than they’d take Dolly and Smitty — didn’t you hear Dolly almost got thrown out because she had been careless and they thought she was pregnant? I’m pretty sure about Peake and Ravi. And Ching.”

“Ching,” Huff said with a groan. “Damn human computer! I thought they made the choices for compatibility too — how are they going to square it to take along Ching? Nobody likes her!”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Fontana said, with scrupulous fairness. “Huff, are you still prejudiced, just because she’s a G-N?”

“That’s an insult,” Huff said, frowning. “Do you really think I’d keep that kind of superstitious prejudice? Maybe outside UNEPS, they think the G-Ns aren’t human, but, damn it, I know Ching’s human. I’ve seen her bleed, I’ve seen her cry when she was hurt. Logically, I know the only difference between Ching and the rest of us is that somebody tinkered with her mother’s ovaries about ten months before she was born, and as a result, she has perfect genes for high IQ, musical talent, superior muscular tone, slow heartbeat, efficient hemoglobin use, perfect inner ear channels, and so forth.”

“And yet—” Fontana said.

“And yet. I’m human. I resent the G-Ns. Who wouldn’t? The G-Ns are phasing out the human students in the Academy. In the class below us, there are already twenty G-Ns; humans can’t compete with them. G-N cadets will make us all obsolete some day.”

“Don’t be silly,” Fontana said with some heat. “The G-Ns are just as human as we are. They’re the best of humanity, that’s all. Would you prefer to deny humanity the best, just to preserve some of the worst? Is there any moral Tightness to a person being born tone deaf or with hemophilia or sickle-cell anemia? By that reasoning, you’d think women had some god-given right to have a Mongoloid child, or one with something horrible like Tay-Sachs disease!”

“But they all act so superior! The ones in next year’s class aren’t so bad. But Ching was the first, and she knows it, and I can’t stand that damn superiority of hers!”

Fontana said, “That’s not fair. Put yourself in her place, Huff. She knows she’s different; she is superior. Yet she hasn’t made herself hated. All of us here have IQs somewhere between 150 and 185. Ching’s is so far over 200 that they can’t even measure it, because there’s no one who could make up a test. She’s — careful. Not that anyone here would hate her — anyone who’s capable of real hate gets weeded out of the Academy a lot younger than this. Ching’s not arrogant; she’s diffident, that’s all. She doesn’t want to — to swing her weight. Understand?”

“No,” Huff confessed, “but I don’t expect to. When you decided to specialize in Psychology, you lost me. And,” he added, hugging her suddenly, “I’m going to miss you, Fontana. Listen—” he said shyly, “do you know I don’t even know your name?”

“You never asked,” Fontana said, touching his cheek. “I know yours, because I worked one year with the Rosters. You’re Jurgen Hoffmeister, and I think Huff is a lot better as a name. The names people out there give to their kids!”

“It’s funny,” Huff said softly, “I keep forgetting, but sometimes, when I’m half asleep, I hear my mother saying my name. Jurgen. I called her Mutti or Mutterl. I’m never speak anything but English, here. But when I’m asleep I remember.”

“I know,” Fontana whispered, “I don’t remember my mother. I don’t think I had one. But I remember I had a sister. She was bigger than I was. Her name was Consuelo. I wonder if she’s still alive? I wish sometimes they’d let us know. But she would think of me as Maria, and wonder who Fontana was. She’ll — if I’m chosen or the Ship — she’ll see me and never know that I’m her sister.”

“I think that’s why they give us nicknames,” Huff murmured, “so that every mother, or father, can look at us and wonder, is that my son, or daughter, is that my Jurgen, my Maria? And never be sure, but always think it could be.”

Fontana rolled over and buried her head in his shoulder. She said roughly, “Hey, you’re not so bad a psychologist yourself, at that. Cut it out before I start to cry.”

“Sure,” he agreed, and began fondling her again. But she was crying, and so was he.

Before nightfall, Teague had requested permission to leave the Academy grounds, and had driven his flitter up to the Observatory. The official who gave it had stared at the chunky, freckled lad in sloppy fatigue uniform, but he had signed the permission slip; there was no reason not to. Except for class hours, the students had unrestricted freedom. Teague had explained that his final examinations, and the ceremony earlier that day, had interfered with some photographic studies he had made of a transit of Venus last week, and he wanted to examine them carefully before leaving.

In the Observatory darkroom he worked away happily for many hours, unnoticed, until one of the night watchmen — all of whom knew him, for he spent a substantial part of his time there — asked, “Isn’t it your class that’s graduating tomorrow?”

And then James MacTeague had blinked, grinned, and thought to himself; so that’s why they looked at me so funny when I signed out. Our last night, and all that. It is tomorrow, isn’t it?

But then the buzz on the developer sounded, and he went back to his slides. He didn’t have much time to finish up.

Moira was in the Jacuzzi, neck-deep in hot water, the bubbling jets streaming against her naked body, her red hair streaming on the surface. There were eight or ten other cadets in the Jacuzzi with her, crowded so close that the water spilled out on the fiberglas deck; most of them male, and each convinced that he was the one Moira wanted there.

Not that Moira was a tease; it was only high spirits and good nature. She had done the usual amount of sexual experimentation, but never to the point where it interfered with her standing in her classes — right at the top, just below Ravi, Peake and Ching, who were the intellectual standouts in her year, and had been so since they were nine years old — and she had left no broken hearts in the wake of her good-natured sexiness.

She moved sensuously in the tub, revelling in the feel of the bubbling hot water against her long limbs. Next to her, Scotty said, “Has your ESP told you anything about which of us is going to be on the crew, Moira?”