Alexei Panshin - Rite of Passage

Riggy said, “Where did you get that gun? Can I see it?”

I handed it over to him. After a minute of inspection, Riggy said, “You wouldn’t want to trade something for it, would you?”

I said, “Riggy, you may have it.” I didn’t particularly want it any more. I knew I would never use it again and it held no fascination for me.

Only seventeen of us in all came aboard. Twelve didn’t live or trigger their signals. I thought about that on the way back to the Ship. I counted the times I was in some danger of being killed? and I came up with a minimum of five times. If you say the chances of living through any single one of these encounters was nine in ten, the chances of living through five are only six in ten. Fifty-nine in a hundred, actually. If everybody s experience was like mine, it wasn’t unreasonable that twelve of us should not come back. The trouble was that Att was among the missing twelve.

When we got to the Ship, people were there to take care of our horses. We went through decontamination quickly and then they led us into the reception room. They had decorations up for Year End on the walls and colored mobiles that twinkled overhead. There was a band and Daddy in his official capacity to welcome the new adults. Daddy shook my hand.

There were parents waiting. There was Mother and I saw Jimmy’s mother and her husband and his father and his father’s wife. When they saw Jimmy they all waved. And I saw Att’s mother.

I said to Jimmy, “I’ll see you later.”

I went to Att’s mother and I said, “I’m sorry, but Aft isn’t with us.” I didn’t know how else to say it. I wished I could say it so that it didn’t hurt her, but it hurt me, too, to know that he wasn’t coming back, and it hurt me to tell her. When she hadn’t seen him with us, she must have known. She began to cry and she nodded and touched my shoulder, and then turned away.

I went over to Mother and she smiled and took my hand. “I’m pleased you came home,” she said, and then she began to cry, and turned her head.

Daddy came away from giving his congratulations and he hugged me. He put a measuring hand over my head and said, “Mia, I believe you’ve grown some.”

I nodded, because I thought I had, too. It felt very good to be home.

I’ve always resented the word maturity, primarily, I think, because it is most often used as a club. If you do something that someone doesn’t like, you lack maturity, regardless of the actual merits of your action. Too, it seems to me that what is most often called maturity is nothing more than disengagement from life. If you meet life squarely, you are likely to make mistakes, do things you wish you hadn’t, say things you wish you could retract or phrase more felicitously, and, in short, fumble your way along. Those “mature” people whose lives are even without a single sour note or a single mistake, who never fumble, manage only at the cost of original thought and original action. They do without the successes as well as the failures. This has never appealed to me and that is another reason I could never accept the common image of maturity that was presented to me.

It was only after I came back from Trial that I came to a notion of my own as to what maturity consists of. Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with. It is easy now to see the irrelevance of the religious wars of the past, to see that capitalism in itself is not evil, to see that honor is most often a silly thing to kill a man for, to see that national patriotism should have meant nothing in the twenty-first century, to see that a correctly-arranged tie has very little to do with true social worth. It is harder to assess as critically the insanities of your own time, especially if you have accepted them unquestioningly for as long as you can remember, for as long as you have been alive. If you never make the attempt, whatever else you are, you are not mature.

I came to this conclusion after the Ship’s Assembly that was held as a result of our experiences on Tintera. Our experiences were shocking to the Ship, and Tintera seemed like a glimpse of the Pit. The Tinterans were Free Birthers beyond a doubt. (I don’t like that idea even now.) They might be slavers. They had obtained a scoutship by some low method and had intended to use it against us. Finally, they had killed an unprecedented number of our Trial Group. To die on Trial was one thing — to have children assassinated by Mudeaters was another.

Rumors started to spread almost as soon as we had arrived home. The day after we came home, a Ship’s Council Meeting was held, and thereafter an account of what had actually happened was broadcast through the Ship. To most people, it was worse than the rumors.

I sat in on the Council meeting and testified, and I could see that every man on the Council was bothered by what we had to say. The Council concluded that a major decision needed to be made, and made with reasonable promptness, so two days later a Ship’s Assembly was called.

The only adults who were not in the amphitheatre for the Assembly were the few hundred people absolutely required to keep our world running. The seventeen of us who had survived, Mr. Pizarro, and George Fuhonin sat with the Council on the stage at the base of the theatre. I had seen plays performed where I was sitting.

Daddy called the Assembly to order on the hour, and began by apologizing for interrupting the holiday with serious business.

“I know, however,” he said, “that most of you have caught the vid discussions of Tintera and realize the serious nature of the problem. We dropped a Trial Group on this planet one month ago. We’ll have them tell you as they told the Council exactly what they saw and experienced. When they have finished, the floor will be open to questions and debate.”

The audience had previously heard the facts. Now they heard them directly from us. I testified about Free Birth. I told exactly what I had seen. Jack Fernandez-Fragoso testified about the Losels. Jimmy told about the captured scoutship. One by one, we told what we knew, led by Daddy’s questions, and Mr. Pizarro and George added their testimony to ours. When we were done, the questioning started. Mr. Tubman recognized the signal of a little man sitting high in the left banks and put him on screen. The whispering-gallery amplifiers picked up his question.

“Do I understand that they were using these Losel things as slaves? Is that right?”

Mr. Persson answered that fairly. “We don’t know that. They were definitely using them as involuntary labor. The question seems to be whether they are intelligent enough to be called slaves. As you heard from Mr. Fernandez-Fragoso, there are some indications that they are, and some that they aren’t. But I think we should bear the possibility in mind.”

The little man nodded, and Mr. Tubman passed on to another man who had signaled for recognition.

“Am I right? They actually intended to move against our Ship by force?”

Mr. Persson said, “That’s not certain, either. It’s another possibility and it was settled by the disabling of the scoutship.”

The man said, “Barbaric,” half to himself. Then: “I think we ought to offer a vote of thanks to these young people for solving our problem for us.” And he sat down.

The next person to gain recognition seconded the idea, and my face got hot. I looked at Jimmy and saw that he wa embarrassed, too. I wished that they would pass on. I didn’t want any vote of thanks like a stone hung around my neck.

Mr. Persson said, “I think that’s a fine idea. I call for a vote on the motion.”

One of the others on the Council raised an objecting hand. He said, “I think that’s getting away from the purpose of this Assembly. If at some other time the idea seems in order, we can take action on it then.”