Exiled from Earth

19

The doctors made Lou stay in bed for a week, while his torn skin healed and he got his strength back. He saw Bonnie and Kori almost every day. But most of the time he lay in bed, thinking. So much had happened in so short a time. Now he could think about it, look back on it and try to fit all the fragments together, to form a coherent picture of what had suddenly happened to him and his life.

Why? he thought bitterly. Why Big George? The main reason we tried to go against Marcus was to save George, and he was the only one that didn’t get through it all right. Lou thought of the bomb explosion and how it must have terrified the gorilla. The last few hours of his life must have been hell for such a peaceful, gentle animal. We didn’t do right by you, George, Lou said silently. I’m sorry.

Looking toward the future, Lou was just as bleak. They were going to exile him, of that he was sure. Kori was more optimistic, though.

“After all we’ve done for the government?” Kori said one afternoon, at Lou’s bedside. “Risking our lives to stop Bernard’s attempt at a coup? They won’t exile us, they’ll give us medals. You should get an award anyway, you’ve set a new international record for splinters.”

Lou grinned with the young physicist. But inwardly, he knew the government couldn’t let them go free. They would tell the world about the exile, and the government would never be allow that.

There was something different about Bonnie. She was up tight, holding back something that she didn’t want Lou to know.

One afternoon, as they strolled together through the busy hospital corridors, he asked her.

“What’s bothering you?”

She didn’t seem surprised by the question. “Does it show?”

He nodded.

“I’ve got to make a decision,” Bonnie said Her gray eyes looked troubled, sad.

“About Kori and me?”

“In a way. You see, Lou, I’m not officially on the list of exiled persons. I can go back to Albuquerque, if I want to. Or I can go with the rest of you to the satellite.”

“And stay for the rest of your life.”

“Yes.”

He took a deep breath.

If you married me. he said to her in his mind, you’d have to share my exile. So I can’t ask you for that. I can’t even mention it.

She was staring at him, trying to read his face, looking for something and not finding it.

Aloud, he said, “Bonnie, you might never allowed to make that decision. You’re in pretty deep with us now. The government might decide to exile you along with Kori and me.”

Bonnie stopped, right there in the corridor. “They can’t do that; they wouldn’t.”

“They might,” Lou said “And if they do, it’ll be my fault.”

“There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you two!” Kori ran down the corridor, dodging between frowning nurses and muttering patients Breathlessly, he told Lou and Bonnie, “The General Chairman, he’s asked to see us. To talk to us. Tomorrow morning. The General Chairman!”

Lou turned to Bonnie. For the first time, he felt hope. If not for himself, then at least for her.

Despite his anger, despite his hatred of what had been done to his life, Lou felt as awed as a peasant in a palace when the three of them were ushered into the General Chairman’s office. Bonnie and Kori, he saw, were also wide-eyed and silent.

The office was impressive. It covered the entire top floor of the tallest tower in Messina, stretching from the elevator doors where they stood to the sun-bright window-wall where the Chairman’s old fashioned ornate desk stood.

“Come in, come,” said the little man behind that desk, in a voice cracked with age.

They walked silently across the thick carpeting, past a ten-foot globe showing the world in color and relief, complete with networks of tiny satellites orbiting around it. The whole globe hung in mid-air, suspended magnetically. The entire office was decorated in shades of green, dark jungle greens for the most part. The furniture was all richly polished natural wood. There was a scent of orchids and other lush tropical aromas in the air. And the climate control for the big room was warm, moist, almost sticky.

“Forgive me for not rising,” the Chairman said “I suffered a slight stroke recently, and the doctors want me to exert myself as little as possible.” His voice was soft, gentle, and friendly, with an undisguised Brazilian accent. He was small, slight, his bony face high-domed and haloed with wisps of white hair, his hands fragile. He was very old. His skin was white and powdery-looking, laced with networks of fine etched wrinkles.

“However,” the Chairman went on, “I did very much want to meet the three of you. Please sit, make yourselves comfortable. Would you like anything to drink? To eat?”

Lou shook his head as he pulled up a leather-cushioned chair. He sat between Bonnie and Kori, and the three of them faced the Chairman.

Before the silence could become awkward, the Chairman said, “I want to express my personal thanks for your courageous actions on the island. You prevented an uprising that might have taken many lives.”

“We did what we had to,” Lou said.

The Chairman nodded. “It must have been quite a temptation, though, to put in with Bernard’s people and avoid going to exile.”

Shrugging, Lou answered, “As far as I’m concerned, we were in exile on that island. There was no difference between the way the government has treated us and the way Bernard’s people were treating us. The government was a little more polite, maybe. That’s all.”

“Besides,” Kori added, “I think we all felt that the people running the island would be worse than the people running this government, if they got the chance.”

With a smile, the Chairman said, “Thank you. It’s good to know that we are not completely at the bottom of the list.”

Ron grinned back at the old man.

Somehow their smiles irritated Lou. “From what you’ve said, it sounds like the exile is still in effect, and we’re going to be shipped out to the satellite.”

The Chairman’s face grew somber. “Yes, I am sorry to say. If anything, this attempt by Minister Bernard to seize power proves the wisdom of the exile. Your work on genetic engineering is simply too powerful to be used politically.”

“So we spend the rest of our lives in a beryllium jail!”

“What else can we do?” The Chairman waved his frail hands helplessly “We are not monsters. We have no desire to make you suffer. We will supply you with everything you desire aboard the satellite. Anything.”

“Except freedom,” Lou snapped.

“Regretfully true,” said the Chairman. But now there was a hint of steel behind the softness of his voice. “If I must choose between the welfare of twenty billions and two thousand or so, I will choose the twenty billions. The mere knowledge that you might soon be able to control human genetics has already triggered one attempt at revolution. I will not see the world destroyed. We have worked long and hard to avert destruction from war and from famine. I am not going to permit destruction to come from a test tube or a computer. Not if I can help it.”

“But what about Kerf? The work of the rocket scientists doesn’t really threaten the world.”

“Perhaps not,” the Chairman admitted. “I must confess that I didn’t realize anyone except those working on genetic engineering had been sentenced to exile. Someone in the bureaucracy considers the starship scientists a threat to world stability. I must find out why. If they cannot convince me that you are a threat, Dr Kori, then you will be released from exile and free to resume your normal life You, and any of your colleagues who have been placed in exile.”

Before Kori could say anything, Lou went on, “And Bonnie, here what about her?”

She murmured, “Lou, you shouldn’t.”

“No, I want to find out about this. Bonnie wasn’t sentenced to exile. She was picked up like the rest of us, and then released. She came to the island and found out what’s going on. Now where does she stand? Is she going to be shipped off with the rest of us or not?”

If the Chairman was angered by Lou’s insistent questions, he didn’t show it. “Miss Sterne is not a scientist nor an engineer. There is absolutely no reason for her to be exiled. Unless she wishes to accompany you, for her own personal reasons.”

“You can really say that with a straight face!” Lou raged. “You can sit there and promise her freedom when you know you don’t mean it!”

“Lou, what are you saying?” Bonnie reached out for his arm.

The Chairman’s eyes narrowed. “Explain yourself, Mr. Christopher. Why do you call me a liar?”

Almost trembling, Lou said, “If you let Bonnie go, if you let Kori go, what’s to stop them from telling the newsmen about this exile business? What’s to stop them from telling the whole world? Will you want them to sign a pledge of silence, or will you do surgery on their brains? Because we both know you can’t risk having them tell the world about what you’ve done to the scientists…”

“Why not?” the Chairman asked gently.

“Why… why? Because the people of the world will demand that you release us. They’ll want genetic engineering… they’ll want us free. You can’t throw two thousand of the world’s top scientists into prison and …”

The Chairman silenced Lou with an upraised hand. “My brave, impetuous young man, you are completely wrong about so many things. Firstly, I do not lie. When I offer Miss Sterne her freedom, and raise the possibility of freedom for Dr. Kori, I am not lying. Why should I? Please do me the honor of granting me honest motives.

“Secondly, the people of the world already know about your exile. We have not kept it secret. There would be no way to do so, even if we desired to. You cannot whisk away so many prominent men without anyone knowing it.”

“They … they know?”

“Of course they know. And they do not care. Do you think that the teeming billions on Earth care about a handful of scientists and engineers?” The Chairman shook his head. “No, they care about food, about jobs, about living space, about recreation and procreation.”

“But genetic engineering. I thought…” Lou felt as if he were in a glider that was spinning out of control.

“Ah yes, your work,” The Chairman said. “I admit that if you were on Earth and showing the world, step by step, that it could be done—then there would soon be an enormous demand for it. Catastrophic reaction. Everyone would want his next child made perfect.

“But today, you are only talking about the possibility of doing this sometime in the future. You might be successful next week, or next year, or next century. I confess that our public information experts have tried to make it sound more like next century than next week. And having you all out of the way has made the job that much easier.”

“And… nobody cares?”

The Chairman looked truly sad. “The people are quite accustomed to talk of scientific miracles. Rarely do they see such miracles come true.”

“But the food they eat, weather control, medicines, space expeditions…”

“All part of the normal, everyday background,” said the Chairman. “Once a miracle comes true, it quickly becomes a commonplace. And the people hardly ever connect today’s commonplaces with your talk of tomorrow’s miracles. So your promises of genetic engineering do not excite most people. Grasping politicians, yes; hungry workers and farmers, no.”

“So it’s over… completely finished. No way around it.” Lou sank back in his seat numbly.

“I am afraid so. I have lived with this problem for more than a year now, trying to find some alternative to exile. There is none. I am sorry. Somewhere, we have failed. We build gleaming technologies to turn ourselves into devils.” The Chairman shook his head. “I am ashamed of myself, of the government, of the entire society. We are doing you a dreadful injustice.”

“But you’re going ahead and doing it,” Lou muttered.

“Yes,” the Chairman shot back. “That is the most terrible part of it. I hate this. But I will do it. I know you can never accept it, never agree to it, never understand why it must be done. I am sorry.”

The four of them lapsed into a dismal silence.

Finally, the Chairman said, “As I told you, I will personally examine the matter of the rocket scientists. Dr. Kori, I cannot promise you your freedom, but I do promise to try.”

Kori nodded and tried to look grateful but not too happy, glancing sidelong at Lou.

“And Miss Sterne,” the Chairman went on, “you are free to go whenever you wish. The government will furnish you with transportation back to Albuquerque,, or any place else you may desire to go. And you will be reimbursed for the troubles that you’ve been put to, of course.”

Bonnie said, “Sir? Would it be possible for me to go to the satellite? On a temporary basis?”

Lou stared at her.

“Most of my friends are there,” Bonnie said, looking straight at the Chairman and avoiding Lou’s eyes. “Maybe I’d rather live there than anywhere else. But I can’t tell unless I’ve tried it for a while.”

The Chairman folded his hands on his thin chest and gazed thoughtfully at Bonnie. He looked as if he knew there was a lot more to Bonnie’s request than she had stated.

“How do you think the others will feel, knowing that you can return to Earth anytime you wish to?”

Bonnie’s face reddened slightly. “I… I would only stay a few weeks. I’d be willing to make a final decision then.”

“A few weeks,” the Chairman echoed. “And then you would make a decision that would be irrevocable… for the rest of your life?”

She nodded slowly.

A little smile worked its way across the Chairman’s wrinkled face. “I can picture Kobryn’s reaction. Highly irregular. But—very well, you may have a few weeks aboard the satellite. But no more.”

“Thank you!” Bonnie said. And then she turned, smiling, to Lou.