Anne McCaffrey: Decision at Doona

With a haste inconsonant with the dignity of his office and his years, the Fifth Speaker rose and, in a voice hoarse with distress, gave his devastating report. He did not try to gloss over the frightening rise of suicide deaths, including the irrational waves of mass, masochistic self-destruction; a crushing apathy in some strata balanced by insensate violence in others, the decreasing birth rate in the higher intelligence percentiles; a disproportionate increase of mental retardation in the lower brackets; an overall picture of racial decay and indifference.

The Fourth Speaker was asked to report more fully on Education. The good gentleman glanced down at his thick report for a moment, then let it fall from his hands to the table.

«The statistics are here. First Speaker has already acquainted you with the essential one: one half of one percent of the maturing generation indicates – not applied for, has indicated only – interest in further training. When there is no incentive to learn anything, why bother? With the performance records presently in hand in elementary levels, there is really no point in my speaking at all. Soon there will be no teachers left to teach those who do not wish to learn anyhow.»

He shrugged and sat down, his chin sinking to his chest in an attitude of disconsolate defeat.

The Sixth Speaker stood, clearing his throat, trying to dispel the gloom cast by the Fourth.

Halfway through his own report on production and manufacturing he, too, stopped and his report slapped quietly back to the table.

“There's no point in my going on either. Perhaps I'm fortunate in that most of my department's operations are automatic, so personnel training is not presently a problem. It will be. And soon.”

The Third Speaker glared around at his peers, unable to catch anyone's eye, until he reached the Second Speaker.

“And I suppose that you, too, are going to hang your head with still more disgraceful mouthings of inefficiency and indifference.”

“On the contrary,” Second replied, looking first to his left for the Prime Speaker's permission. “My Department attracts trainees constantly. Of course, we have to reject many of them due to physical unfitness. Others are disappointed because, unfortunately, the appropriation for Exploration and Defense falls woefully behind its needs. Consequently, we get the best of our vital young men and women. If Sixth is agreeable, I believe I can put it to the Corps to volunteer to man the mining colony proposed for 9A-23, until such time as other personnel can be found and trained.”

There was something about the way Second made his helpful proposal that irritated Third far more than First's rejection of the 9A-23 priority over the pastoral planet. The reports, so devastatingly pessimistic, must be exaggerations of actual fact. Moreover, the whole thing smacked of collusion. He intended to check the print-outs in the Computer. However, before he had a chance to gather his arguments, the First Speaker was taking a vote on colonizing his pet project. The Third Speaker naturally felt obliged to abstain from voting and was then forced to suppress his horrified indignation when the other six Speakers voted in its favor.

The First Speaker wasted no further time but turned the meeting over to the Chief of Extraterritorial Explorations.

The Chief rose, feeling a respect bordering on admiration for the Prime Speaker's masterly handling of a tricky meeting. The Chief bowed to him, catching no hint in the benign eyes that the re-education program which the Chief was about to outline had, in actual fact, been initiated twenty years ago.

IT REQUIRED EVERY ounce of self-control Ken Reeve had developed over the frustrating years of his adulthood to keep from shouting, singing, jumping or committing a number of other social solecisms.

As it was, he received stern, remanding looks from the other passengers in the express lift for the wide smile he couldn't repress.

He did make an effort to compose his face, to moderate his breathing to the proper shallowness, but the mere knowledge that in the very near future he would have a whole new world to breathe in made it difficult for him to conform.

Nevertheless, because he couldn't risk an official summons which might delay his triumphant return to Patricia, he did hunch his shoulders forward, tucked his elbows tight to his straining rib cage, sucked in his guts and pressed his knees together in the proscribed stance socially acceptable in an elevator.

It was still impossible to limit his exultation, which he was evidently broadcasting, judging by the constant surreptitious looks he received as the cage plummeted down to the dormitory levels.

Never before had Ken been so aware of the weight, warmth and aroma of humanity, or of the crowded life that had seemed inescapable; from which he was actually going to escape. As never before, he was conscious of the odor of a confined crowd: a composite of inefficient multiscented perspirant inhibitors, breath cleansers, digestive neutralizers, the acrid overtones of body-warmed inorganic fabrics, the hot-metals-old-paint stink, and, over all, the air-conditioner's deodorizer, which had never been successful.

Stale air breathed by stale people into stale lungs to prolong stale lives in a stagnant society!

The hydraulics were faulty again, Ken noticed, for the elevator stopped with a sickening jolt. There had been a newscast recently, urging young adults to apply for a career in maintenance. Not even the failure of two high-speed freight elevators had stimulated any response to the call, though there had been wide muttering about the lack of public spirit in the upcoming generation. No one in his packed cage appeared to notice the jerking stop, but then, Ken thought as he felt the pressure of soft flesh against him, we're so tightly jammed in, no one could get hurt in a free-fall.

The wide doors slid reluctantly open. Ken mastered the incredible urge to stride recklessly through the socially acceptable shuffle of the disembarking. Heads shoulders bobbed forward around him. The hair on his shins stood out in radar-like sensitivity to the constant proximity of other legs. He gritted his teeth, wanting to race down the walk-belt of the 235th Hall, but he doggedly matched his step with the other hundreds in that rippling sea of bodies. The creeping pace was endurable if he thought of the fields and hills he would soon be able to stride over. Did anyone – any one of his presently close fellow travelers – know what a 'field' was? A 'hill'? He'd wager they'd never even applied for a day at their local Square Mile.

But the wager he'd made after he had seen a Square Mile had paid off. He, his wife, Pat, the two kids, Ilsa and Todd, were going to leave the land warrens of Earth for the naked soil and sky of Doona. Doona! The name had a talismanic ring: a fresh air ring, a real food ring, a landscape ring – a freedom ring!

The 235th Hall had never seemed so long to him, nor the walk-belt so slow. It crawled past block after block until Ken felt every muscle twitching at the restraints he had to impose on himself. But Proctors were everywhere in the Hall, just waiting for a misdemeanor to break the monotony of their four-hour watch. Ken had heard it rumored that Proctors received extra calories for every conviction.

Well if that were so, he snorted to himself, innocently returning the shocked glances cast in his direction as he turned guilt from himself with practiced ease, their Aisle Proctor ought to be one helluva lot fatter than he was.

Up ahead, he heard a murmuring. He glanced over the barely bobbing heads, lucky enough to be taller than most of the run of his generation. He could hear a snuffling, the outraged mumble, the slight flurry of moving bodies.