Alexei Panshin - Rite of Passage

To me, these people were fantastic and wonderful and it still hurts me to think that they had to cap it all by blowing themselves to pieces. But that was Earth. Not the Mudeaters.

On the second Sunday after we finished moving to Geo Quad, I was reading a book in my room when Daddy knocked on my door. I put the book aside when he came in.

“Did you have any plans for next weekend, Mia?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Why?”

“I had an idea I thought you might like.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve just finished talking with the Supply Steward. We’re going to have to make a barter stop, so we’re laying by Grainau this weekend. The Council has given me the job of dealing with them. I thought you might enjoy coming along with us.”

He ought to have known better than that. I shook my head and said, “I don’t think I want to see the Mudeaters.”

“Don’t use that word,” Daddy said. “They may be primitive, but they’re still people. You might be surprised at what you could learn from them. The world doesn’t end with a quad. It doesn’t end with a Ship, either.”

My heart pounding, I said, “Thank you, but I don’t think I’m interested,” and picked up my book again.

“You might think about this,” Daddy said. “In twenty months you’re going to be alone on a planet with people like these, doing your best to live with them and stay alive. If you can’t stand to be near them now, what are you going to do then? I think you ought to be interested.”

I shook my head, but then I suddenly couldn’t pretend to be indifferent any longer. With tears in my eyes, I said, “I am interested. But I’m scared.”

“Is that all?”

“What do you mean, ‘Is that all?’ ”

Daddy said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I can see how the thought might frighten you. Most of the colony planets are pretty unpleasant places by any civilized standard. What I meant was, is that your only reason for not wanting to come along?”

“Yes,” I said. “But it’s not the planets that scare me. It’s the people.”

“Oh,” Daddy said. He sighed. “You know, I was afraid of something like this. One of the reasons I had for moving was that I thought you were too dependent on Alfing Quad. You were living in too small a world. The trouble is that you don’t know that there is anything real beyond the things you are familiar with at first hand. If I could take you down on Crainau and show you something new, and show you that it isn’t all that bad, I think you’d get over this fear of yours.”

My stomach lurched with fear. “You’re not going to make me go, are you?” I asked desperately.

“No. I won’t make you go. I won’t ever force you to do anything, Mia. I’ll tell you what, though,” he said, his manner changing abruptly. “If you come along, if you go down to Grainau with me this weekend, I promise I’ll unfreeze you. How about that?”

I had to smile, but I shook my head.

“Think about it,” Daddy said. “You may change your mind.”

When he went out, I had the feeling he was disappointed, and suddenly I felt depressed and even more unhappy. It was as though having my fingers dug in and holding on as best I could to my security, suddenly I wasn’t to be allowed it anymore, and Daddy was prying my fingers loose one-by-one. That wouldn’t have been so bad if he weren’t disappointed that I wouldn’t let go.

So, not quite knowing why, I went back to Alfing Quad. Perhaps it was because it was the one place where I knew that they were satisfied with me as I was. I took the shuttle to the Fourth Level and then the cross-level shuttle to Alfing Quad.

First I went to our old apartment and let myself in with the key I should have turned in and hadn’t. There wasn’t a bit of furniture there. No books, no book shelves. I wandered through the rooms and they all seemed identical. It didn’t seem like home anymore, because all the things that had made it home were gone. It was just another empty corner of my life and I left very shortly.

Mrs. Farmer was standing in the hall when I went out, looking at me and noting, no doubt, that I had a key that I shouldn’t have had. She and I had never cared too much for each other. She always had made it a point of honor to tell Daddy when I did something that she would never have let her Peter do, in some cases things that Daddy had told me specifically that I could do. Daddy always listened politely to her, then closed the door behind her and forgot about the whole thing. She just looked at me; she didn’t say anything.

I went to the quad yard next, and nobody was there, so I went to the Common Room. It was odd, but I felt like a stranger here in these familiar halls, as though I ought to tiptoe and duck around corners to avoid meeting somebody who might recognize me. I felt like an intruder. That isn’t the feeling that you ought to have when you go home, but somehow in the process of our moving Alfing Quad had become an uneasy place for me.

I could hear the kids making noise in the Common Room before I even got there, and I hesitated to wind up my courage before I went in. The Common Room was not just one room, actually. It was a complex of rooms: a lounge, a library, two game rooms, study rooms, a music practice room, a music listening room, a small theater, and a snackery. The snackery was where I expected to see my friends.

It seemed to be my day for meeting Farmers, because Peter Farmer came out as I was hesitating. He isn’t one of my favorite people and his mother keeps him on a very short leash, but I saw no reason not to be friendly.

I said, “Hello.”

Peter stared frankly at me, and then he said, “What are you doing back here? My mother said that she was glad you were gone because you’re such a bad example.”

So I looked straight at him and lied. “How can you say such a thing, Peter Farmer? I just saw your mother and she was perfectly sweet. She said if I ran into you I was to tell you it was time to run along home.”

“Oh, you never met my mother.”

“Of course I did,” I said, and went into the Common Room.

There is a firm social line drawn between kids over fourteen and kids under. As adults and citizens, they have rights that the younger ones don’t have and they are not slow to let the younger ones know it. In a place like the Common Room where both come, the older ones have their area, and the younger ones their area. Though there isn’t any real difference between them, somehow the adult area has a mystique and attraction that the younger area lacks. I went over to the corner where my friends gathered.

Mary Carpentier was sitting at a table with Venie Morlock and two or three of the other kids, and I headed over to them.

When she saw me, Mary said, “Well, hi, Mia. Come on and sit down. What are you doing here?”

“I just thought I’d visit and see how you were doing,” I said, sitting down at the table. I wasn’t going to say how unhappy I was in Geo Quad — not with Venie sitting there listening to every word and ready to shout hallelujah.

I said, “Hi,” and everybody at the table said, “Hi, Mia,” back.

Mary said, “Gee, Mia. I didn’t expect you to turn up back here. Why didn’t you call and tell me you were coming?”

“It was a sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing,” I said.

“Well, it’s good to see you. Hey, how do you like it where you are now?”

“It’s all right, I guess,” I said. “I’m still getting used to things. I haven’t met everybody or been everywhere yet.”

“Hey, do you still do that crazy business of walking around in the collecting chutes over there?” one of the others asked.

“No,” I said. “I haven’t gotten around to it, but I expect I will.”