Damon Knight - Orbit 15

David walked blankly for an hour or more, and finally found himself in his room, exhausted, unwilling yet to go to bed. He sat at his window until dawn, and then he went to Walt’s room. When Walt woke up he reported what W-1 had told him.

“They’ll use the fertile ones only to replenish their supply of clones,” he said. “The humans among them will be pariahs. They’ll destroy what we worked so hard to create.”

“Don’t let them do it, David. For God’s sake, don’t let them do it!” Walt’s color was bad, and he was too weak to sit up. “Vlasic’s mad, so he’ll be of no help. You have to stop them somehow.” Bitterly he said, “They want to take the easy way out, give up now when we know everything will work.”

David didn’t know if he was sorry or glad that he had told Walt. No more secrets, he thought. Never again. “I’ll stop them somehow,” he said. “I don’t know how, or when. But soon.”

A Four brought Walt’s breakfast, and David returned to his room. He rested and slept fitfully for a few hours, then showered and went to the cave entrance, where he was stopped by a Two.

“I’m sorry, David,” he said. “Jonathan says that you need a rest, that you are not to work now.”

Wordlessly David turned and left. Jonathan. W-1. If they had decided to bar him from the lab, they could do it. He and Walt had planned it that way: the cave was impregnable. He thought of the elders, forty-four of them left, and two of that number terminally ill. One of the remaining elders insane. Forty-one then, twenty-nine women. Eleven able-bodied men. Ninety-four clones.

He waited for days for Harry Vlasic to appear, but no one had seen him in weeks, and Vernon thought he was living in the lab. He had all his meals there. David gave that up; he found D-1 in the dining room and offered his help in the lab.

“I’m too bored doing nothing,” he said. “I’m used to working twelve hours a day or more.”

“You should rest now that there are others who can take the load off you,” D-1 said pleasantly. “Don’t worry about the work, David. It is going quite well.” He moved away, and David caught his arm.

“Why won’t you let me in? Haven’t you learned the value of an objective opinion?”

D-1 pulled away, and still smiling easily, said, “You want to destroy everything, David. In the name of mankind, of course. But still, we can’t let you do that.”

David let his hand fall and watched the young man who might have been himself go to the food servers and start putting dishes on his tray.

“I’m working on a plan,” he lied to Walt again and again in the weeks that followed. Daily Walt grew feebler, and now he was in great pain.

David’s father was with Walt most of the time now. He was gray and aged but in good health. He talked of their boyhood, of the coming hunting season, of the recession he feared might reduce his profits, of his wife, who had been dead for fifteen years. He was cheerful and happy, and Walt seemed to want him there.

In March, W-1 sent for David. He was in his office. “It’s about Walt,” he said. “We should not let him continue to suffer. He has done nothing to deserve this.”

“He is trying to last until the girls have their babies,” David said. “He wants to know.”

“But it doesn’t matter any longer,” W-1 said patiently. “And meanwhile he suffers.”

David stared at him with hatred.

W-1 continued to watch him for several more moments, then said, “We will decide.” The next morning it was found that Walt had died in his sleep.

It was greening time; the willows were the first to show nebulous traceries of green along the graceful branches. Forsythias and flaming bushes were in bloom, brilliant yellows and scarlets against the gray background. The river was high with spring runoffs up north and heavy March rains, but it was an expected high, not dangerous, not threatening this year. The air had a balminess that had been missing since September; the air was soft and smelled of wet woods and fertile earth. David sat on the slope overlooking the farm. There were calves in the field, and they looked the way spring calves always looked: thin legs, awkward, slightly stupid. No fields had been worked yet, but the garden was green: pale lettuce, blue-green kale, green spears of onions, dark green cabbage. The newest wing of the hospital, not yet painted, crude compared to the finished brick buildings, was being used already, and he could even see some of the young people at the windows studying. They had the best teachers, themselves, and the best students. They learned amazingly well from one another, better than they had in the early days.

They came out of the school in matched sets: four of this, three of that, two of another. He sought and found three Celias. He could no longer tell them apart; they were all grown-up Celias now, and indistinguishable. He watched them with no feeling of desire; no hatred moved him, no love. They vanished into the barn, and he looked up over the farm, into the hills on the other side of the valley. The ridges were hazy and had no sharp edges anywhere. They looked soft and welcoming. Soon, he thought. Soon. Before the dogwoods bloomed.

The night the first baby was born, there was another celebration. The elders talked among themselves, laughed at their own jokes, drank wine; the clones left them alone and partied at the other end of the room. When Vernon began to play his guitar and dancing started, David slipped away. He wandered on the hospital grounds for a few minutes, as though aimlessly, and then, when he was certain no one had followed him out, he began to trot toward the mill and the generator. Six hours, he thought. Six hours without electricity would destroy everything in the lab.

David approached the mill cautiously, hoping the rushing creek would mask any sound he might make. The building was three stories high, very large, with windows ten feet above ground, on the level where the offices were. The ground floor was filled with machinery. In the back the hill rose sharply; David could reach the windows by bracing himself on the steep incline and steadying himself with one hand on the building. He found a window that went up easily when he pushed it, and in a moment he was inside a dark office. He closed the window, and then, moving slowly with his hands outstretched to avoid any obstacle, crossed the room to the door and opened it a crack. The mill was never left unattended, but he hoped that those on duty tonight would be down with the machinery. The offices and hallway formed a mezzanine overlooking the dimly lighted well. Grotesque shadows made the hallway strange, with deep pools of darkness and places where he would be clearly visible should anyone happen to look up at the right moment. Suddenly David stiffened. Voices.

He slipped his shoes off and opened the door wider. The voices were below him. Soundlessly he ran toward the control room, keeping close to the wall. He was almost to the door when the lights came on all over the building. There was a shout, and he could hear them running up the stairs. He made a dash for the door and yanked it open, slammed it behind him. There was no way to lock it. He pushed a file cabinet an inch or so, gave up, and picked up a metal stool by its legs. He raised it and swung it hard against the main control panel. At the same moment he felt a crushing pain in his shoulders, and he stumbled and fell forward as the lights went out.

He opened his eyes painfully. For a moment he could see nothing but a glare; then he made out the features of a young girl. She was reading a book, concentrating on it. Dorothy? She was his cousin Dorothy. He tried to rise, and she looked up and smiled at him.