Дэймон Найт - Orbit 6

Celia, a plump, pink sausage of a woman, had been generally considered one of the three or four best astrophysicists in the world. Now, at thirty-two, she is unquestionably the best.

Because she is in love with a memory, she feels no great sense of loss in the destruction of the world. She is confident that her companions will see to her survival and it does not occur to her that she may have some role to play in the world they will fashion. She is satisfied that she is still alive. Without conscious awareness, she describes the harsh landscape, only slightly softened by a pointillist’s viridian, to her father, a topical continuation of the internal monologue she has maintained for twenty years.

Corder, the biophysicist, is first to perceive the problem. “It is the genetic pool,” he says, addressing the sky and the water and the faintly green fields. He is a tall, shy man in his early forties, and he is still numbed at the loss of wife and children, whom he had come to think of as the sole source of his happiness and stability. Because he had always sought solace in the certitudes of his discipline before his marriage, he is now eager to begin on the problem. He is eager to seek a solution, because a solution involves for him futurity, and the past, for him, involves horror. “We must maximize the genetic diversity we possess and keep very careful records for second and third generation mating.” He is a little embarrassed and carefully avoids looking at the other two, who in any case are not looking at him.

As a professional biologist, Corder has always been something of a Lamarckian heretic. He has never been able to ignore certain evidence which seems to suggest that environment may produce qualitative changes in speciation. A series of rejected articles has made him sensitively aware of his heresy, and he has hidden an even deeper heresy which stemmed from his early preoccupation with biopsychology and the genetic basis of personality. Now he worries that, under the circumstances, environmental effects may change genetic patterns in some unforeseeable way. He resolves to attempt such environmental controls as he can. He peers at the blasted forests and fields and wonders if preservation of the human species as it has been is a good idea. But he is full of Shavian life-force and he is full of sentiment, and he rejects the notion as the greatest heresy of all.

Sturgis, the Moon-ship pilot, is an Air Force officer in his early thirties. He does not understand what Corder is talking about. He is too numbed by what has happened, and on the Moon, during the waiting period, he was reluctant to accept the fact that only the three of them had survived. Shocked as he had been, his training and discipline have enabled him to bring the ship back to a good landing. The meticulous performance of prescribed duty is his last anchor to reality; it is his obeisance to the only gods he has known, the icons of stars and eagles and oak-leaves. Now he is carefully surveying the surrounding landscape to pick the best spot to erect a survival shelter, although the undamaged interior of the ship is more than adequate to house the group. He nods without comprehension at Corder’s words, his wrinkled, too-old eyes squinting against the bright horizon. He is busy recalling details from an Air Force survival course of a decade before; he wants everything to go in accordance with sound doctrine, the formulators of which he cannot yet believe are dead.

Corder continues: “If we estimate a thirteen-year maturation cycle and employ cross-generation breeding, we should be able to maximize our joint genetic resources in minimum time.” He kneels and scratches some digits in the dust. He ponders them for a moment and stands. “Yes, that is the best we can do.”

Celia comes to the end of her description and allows the image of her father to dim as much as it ever does. She looks up brightly at Corder. “I’m sorry, Dr. Corder, what were you saying?” He explains and she looks away, her face still calm and round, her fine sandy hair lively in the breeze. Inside, she cries Father!

The first baby is a girl and Corder is relieved. She is Sturgis’ daughter, but she will be Corder’s mate. She is now six weeks old and it is time for him to reciprocate. He has not yet had intercourse with Celia, although after she became pregnant, there was no genetic reason not to do so. It has been important that Sturgis, being younger, father the first female so that he, Corder, with a somewhat lower life-expectancy, might have a better chance of genetic insertion into the second generation. He watches the baby playing with its toes in a spot of early-spring sunlight at the entrance to Sturgis’ elaborate palisade shelter. He thinks he will make her a rattle of clam shells; they are easy to find now that there are no gulls to harvest them. The baby’s innocence and beauty have cheered him, but he resolves to limit his playtime with Marianne so that he may condition himself to think of her as his mate. He thinks of his wife, dead now for nearly a year and a half. Of late he has begun to speak to her in his thoughts. He feels better after he has explained things to her. Most often, however, he simply apologizes: I’m sorry, dear.

Later, when it has grown dark, he goes with Celia into the ship and lies with her. There are insects again, and while he savors their evening music, he worries about ecological imbalance and the crops he is about to plant from wild seed salvaged in the fall. In the dark, in the wordless dark, he tries to imagine Celia is his dead wife, and then he rejects the notion as the ultimate infidelity. Lust born of long continence helps him to a blind, primordial consummation, and he awakens in the morning feeling shame, and impatience with himself for feeling shame. He wonders only very briefly why Celia said “O Father!” in the spasm of orgasm, and although she repeats the phrase on succeeding nights, he takes no further note of it.

Sturgis is jealous. He feels no particular affection for Celia, but she had been virgin and he is a possessive and oddly puritanical man, a little unsure of his manhood. He had felt vaguely uneasy about her defloration and his subsequent pleasures until he recalled that he was technically still captain of the Moon ship and thus — perhaps — authorized to perform marriages. He had not, of course, mentioned his feelings to either Celia or Corder, nor has it occurred to him actually to solemnize the relationship. Still, he is upset by Corder’s quiet words on genetic necessities; Corder’s notions offend him. Now only the shelter is wholly and exclusively his creation, and he thinks of Corder with growing hatred. Just let the son of a bitch lay a hand on the shelter and I’ll break his fucking back. . . He begins to compose a mental memorandum of complaint and justification to the S&P Division of the Air Force, with a drop copy to NASA. FROM: Sturgis, John L., Mai. USAF, 2337644/2201. TO: C.O., S&P Div. Pent. B-3389…

Celia lies passively, uncomfortable under the weight of Corder. It is not like it has been with Sturgis. Then, the initial pain had brought the bearded image of her father immediately to her, and Sturgis’ clumsy brutality had kept the image there during subsequent encounters. Corder is too gentle, his experience confined to sex confused by love, enhanced by love. Here there is no love, and Corder is awkward, offensively diffident. With an effort of will, Celia concentrates on her memories, and although she tries hard to remain faithful, two images merge and shift in her mind. She tries to drive the newer image away, and at the moment of orgasm she nearly succeeds. O Father! she says, and it is an apology.

Celia has grown immensely fat. Corder, at fifty-five, is bent from long hours in the fields, long hours mending the nets. Marianne is lithe and slim with new breasts that get in her way during the baseball games Corder organizes. Looking at her, Corder feels desire for the first time in fourteen years. But Marianne has not yet menstruated, and Corder cannot justify lying with her until there is a reasonable prospect of procreation, of fulfillment of the genetic plan.