The Seed of Earth

CHAPTER TWO

There had been rain over Ohio during the night. For once, it had been natural rain. The weather control people engineered the weather with great care during the summer, when thirsty fields cried out for rain, and in the winter, when unchecked snow might throttle civilization.

But in October the fields lay empty. There was no need for artificial rain. The rain that fell in the early hours of morning over central Ohio was God's rain, not man's, sent by the cold front sweeping southward out of Canada.

In his furnished room just off Eleventh Avenue, not very far from the university, Mike Dawes pulled the covers up over his head, retreating symbolically to the womb in hope of finding warmth and security. But it was no good. He was half awake, awake enough to realize he was awake, but still too drowsy to want to get out of bed. He could hear the pattering of the rain. It was a dark morning.

The lumo-dial of his clock read 0800 hours. He knew it was time to get out of bed. This was Wednesday, his busiest day of the academic week. At 0900 there was old Shepperd's Zoology lecture, and German at 1000 hours.

And I forgot to review those verbs, Mike Dawes thought in irritation. If Klaus calls on me, I'm sunk.

He thought about getting out of bed for a few minutes; finally, he rationed himself to sixty more seconds of warmth. Counting off a-thousand-one, a-thousand-two, he sprang out of bed faithfully on the count of a-thousand-sixty, and shivered in the bleak morning coldness.

Routine took hold of him. He stripped off his pajamas and tossed them onto the bed; he groped for a towel and his robe, found them, and made his way down the hall to the shower. He spent three minutes under the cold spray. When he returned to his room, the clock said 0813 hours. Dawes smiled. He was right on schedule. If only he hadn't forgotten about those verbs! But it was too late to fret about that. He'd have to hope for the best.

It looked as though this semester was going to be one long dreary grind, he thought as he pulled clothes from the rickety old dresser and started to climb into them.

He was twenty; this was his third year at Ohio State. If all went well, he would graduate the following year and move on to medical school for four years.

If all went well.

At 0821 hours he was ready to leave: teeth brushed, hair combed, shirt buttoned, shoelaces tied. The books he would need for his morning classes were waiting on the edge of the dresser. He would have time for some orange juice, toast, and coffee at the Student Union. The probability of a surprise Zoo quiz was too great to allow for skipping breakfast; he needed all the energy he could muster. He was skinny, in the first place, stretching one hundred and fifty pounds out for six feet and an inch.

In the second place, he liked to have breakfast.

Dawes started downstairs. It was still raining slightly, but not hard enough to be troublesome. Anyway, it was only a four-block walk from the rooming house where he lived to the Union.

First, though, came one particularly unpleasant morning ritual. He stopped downstairs in the hallway, where the mailboxes were. The mail was usually delivered at 0800 hours, and nobody in the house could relax until it had come. Dawes scanned the boxes as he came down the stairs. Yes, there was mail in his box. He could see the single letter leaning slantwise through the metal grill-work.

A letter from his parents in Cincinnati, maybe. Or a bill from the laundry. Or an announcement of some new show being performed by a campus group. The letter might be anything, anything at all. And he would have to go through this same little ritual of fear every morning for, perhaps, the next twenty years, until he was forty and no longer needed to worry.

His hand quivered a little as he pressed his thumb against the opener-plate. The scanner recorded his print and obediently opened the mailbox. He took out the letter.

It was a blue envelope, longer than usual, with an official penalty-for-private-use imprint where the stamp was supposed to be. Dawes' eyes travelled over the return address almost casually. Colonization Bureau, District Board Number One, New York.

His stomach felt queasy as he ripped the envelope hastily open.

It was addressed to him, all right. The letter, typed neatly in dark red on the standard blue paper, came quickly to the point.

You have been selected to be a member of the colonizing expedition departing on 17 October from Bangor, Maine, aboard the starship GEGENSCHEIN. You must report at once to your nearest Colonization Bureau registry center. You are now subject to the provisions of the Interstellar Colonization Act of 2099, and any violation of these provisions will meet with severe punishment.

By order of L. L. Mulholland, District Chairman.

Mike Dawes read the contents of the slip of blue paper four times, one time after another, and with each reading the numbness grew in him. He was finding it hard to believe that he had really been called. After all, the chance was one in thousands, he thought. Why, in all his life he had only known two or three people to be called. There had been Mr. Cutley, who ran the grocery store, and Teddy Nathan, who lived on the next block.

And Judy Wellington also, Dawes thought.

And now me.

'Dammit, it isn't fair!' he muttered.

'What isn't?' a casual voice asked behind him.

Dawes turned. He saw Lon Rybeck there - a senior who lived on the first floor. Rybeck still wore a dressing gown; he had no early classes, but came out to look at the mail anyway.

Mutely Dawes held up the blue slip. Rybeck's eyes narrowed and his tongue flicked briefly across his lips. 'They picked you?' he said hoarsely.

Dawes nodded. 'It just came. I have to report to the nearest registry center right away.'

'That's a lousy break, Dawes!'

'Damn right it is! Why'd they have to grab me? I'm only twenty! I haven't even finished college! I—'

He quit, realizing that he sounded foolish. Rybeck was trying to look sympathetic, but behind the expression of concern was a deeper amusement - and relief. Probability dictated that the invisible hand would not reach into this house a second time; Dawes' selection meant Rybeck could breathe more freely.

'It's rough,' Rybeck said gently. 'The morning mail comes and all your plans explode like bubbles. Where are they sending you, do you know?'

Dawes shook his head. 'It just says I'll be leaving next Wednesday from the Bangor starfield. Doesn't give the destination.'

Suddenly he did not want to talk to Rybeck anymore.

He had envied the older man long enough. Rybeck had a casual attitude toward grades, toward professors, toward other people, that the more conscientious Dawes had never fully understood. And now there was Rybeck, smiling ironically, standing there in his dressing gown with his life still intact. Dawes felt intolerable jealousy.

He rushed past Rybeck, up the stairs and into his room.

The clock said 0830, but it didn't matter now. Dawes tossed his textbooks carelessly into the bookshelf. Nothing mattered any more. There would be no more classes for him, no more hours of study, no more ambitions. He didn't have to worry about applying to medical school.

Instead of the years of study, interning and residency, struggling to set up a practice, he would live out the rest of his days on some alien world of another star.

Of all the lousy luck, Dawes thought.

He tried to rationalize it. He tried to tell himself that it was better his number had come up now, when he was still young. Except for his parents, no one would miss him very greatly. It might have been much worse if he had hung on another ten years. He visualized himself at the age of thirty, a little on the plump side, a well-fed general practitioner with a nice home in Cleveland Heights or perhaps here in Columbus. He would have a wife, two small children, a modest but growing practice.

And the inexorable hand would descend and pluck him away from all that. Better to go now, he agreed bleakly.

But still better not to go at all!

He unfolded the note and read it yet again. This time he noticed the slogan across the bottom of the sheet:

Do Your Share For Mankind's Destiny.

Twenty years ago, they had decided that mankind's destiny was in the stars. Mike Dawes had been a gurgling baby when the decision was made that, twenty years hence, would rip him from the fabric of existence on Earth. Get out to the stars, that was the cry that swept newly-united Earth. Settle other worlds. Spread Earthmen through the universe. It had been a noble aim, Dawes thought. Except that nobody seemed very anxious to go. Let the other guy colonize the stars. Me, I'll stay here and read about it.

So there was a conscription. And now, Dawes thought, I've been caught.

... report at once to your nearest Colonization Bureau registry center ...

When they said 'at once,' they meant it, Dawes knew.

They meant get there within the hour. And woe betide if they discovered he had done anything to himself to make himself ineligible. There had been cases of women slashing at their bodies with knitting needles to disqualify themselves; naturally, only fertile colonists were wanted. But the penalty for intentional self-hurt was a lifetime at hard labor. It wasn't worth it.

Twice he reached for the phone, to call his parents in Cincinnati and let them know. Twice he drew back. They would have to be told sooner or later, he knew. But he steered away from bringing the bad news himself. Then he pictured how it would be if he remained silent and let the bureau send them its official notice. He picked up the phone again.

His father answered. Mike felt a pang of regret as he heard the voice of his father, the newsstand proprietor who had scraped for years so his favorite boy could study to be a doctor.

'Yes? Who is this?'

'Dad, this is Mike.'

'Is everything all right?' said the immediately suspicious voice. 'You got our letter? You didn't run out of money so soon, did you?'

'No, Dad. I—they've—'

'Speak up, Mike. We must have a bad connection. I can hardly hear you.'

'I've been selected, Dad!'

There was a pause, a sharp indrawing of breath. Dawes heard indistinct muttering; no doubt his father had his hand over the mouthpiece and was telling his mother about it. Dawes was grateful, for the first time, that he had never been able to afford a visual attachment for the phone. Right now he did not want to see their faces.

'When did you get the notice, boy?'

'J-just now. I have to report to the registry center right away. I leave next Wednesday.'

'Next Wednesday,' his father repeated musingly.

Dawes heard his mother sobbing in the background.

She cried out suddenly, 'We won't let them take him!

We won't!'

'There's no helping it, Ethel,' said his father quietly.

"Boy, can you hear me?'

'Yes, Dad.'

'Report where you're supposed to. Don't do anything wrong, do you hear?'

'I won't, Dad.'

'Will we see you again?'

'I -I suppose so. At least they ought to let us say good-bye.'

'And there isn't any way you can get out of this? I mean, once they call you, you can't appeal?'

'No, Dad. Nobody can appeal.'

'Oh. I see.'

There was another long pause. Dawes waited, not knowing what to say. He felt strangely guilty, as if he were at fault somehow for having brought this sorrow upon his parents.

His father said finally, 'So long, boy. Take care of yourself. And let us know, soon as you know anything about where you're going.'

'Sure, Dad. Tell Mom not to worry. So long.'

He hung up the phone. After a moment, he walked to the window. The rain had stopped; it was nearly nine and the slackers were hustling to get to classes on time.

Out there on campus, life was going on as usual. The football coach was sweating out tactics for Saturday's game. Shepperd was clearing his throat and stepping forward to deliver his Zoology lecture, Klaus was belaboring hapless freshmen over irregular German verbs.

Life went on. The world revolved serenely around the sun. But, a week from now, Mike Dawes would be no longer part of this world.

He felt a quiet, seething anger at the injustice of it.

He hadn't asked to be part of Mankind's Destiny. He had no itch to conquer other worlds. He wanted to stay on Earth, marry some reasonably pretty Ohio girl, raise some reasonably normal Ohio children.

Well, that dream was over. There was nothing left for him to do now but to walk down to the registry center and hand himself in, like a wanted criminal.

He locked his room, wondering if he would ever come back here to collect his few belongings, and trotted downstairs and into the street. It seemed to him that everyone on the street turned to look at him, as if they could see the words written in scarlet on his forehead:

MIKE DAWES HAS BEEN SELECTED.

The registry center was in a loft over the movie theater. Only four days ago he had taken a girl to a movie there. They had cuddled in the balcony, ignoring the film on the tridim screen, and he had necked with her and wondered about those aspects of life that were still mysteries to him.

When you were selected, he thought, you also get a wife. They send out fifty men, fifty women. If you happen to be married already but have no children, you can accompany your spouse as a volunteer. If you're married and do have children, and your mate is selected, you stay behind to take care of the children. Unless you and your wife go to space together, you are given one of the other colonists as a mate, and any earthside relationship you may have had is considered terminated. So he would be married soon - to someone.

He took the stairs leading to the registry center two at a time. A few boys were waiting on a bench along the wall; they peered curiously at him as he came in. They had just turned nineteen, and were waiting to register.

Dawes had registered here just a year ago. Everyone had to register at the age of nineteen; if you failed to register, you were automatically selected. So he had come in and filled out the forms, and they had put him through the diagnosing machines and then given him the quick and efficient fertility test. And, a few weeks later, he had received a card telling him that he had passed. He had shrugged and put the card in his wallet, thinking that selection was something that happened to other people.

But it had happened to him. Now.

He put his blue slip down on the reception desk and the clerk looked at it, nodding. Behind him, Dawes heard the waiting boys muttering. As a selectee, he had a certain new notoriety.

'Come this way, please,' she said solemnly to him, giving him a you-are-doing-your-share-for-mankind's-destiny look. She led him into an inner office, where a tall, balding man in his late forties sat initialing some papers.

'Mr. Brewer, this is Michael Dawes, who was selected by the New York board today.'

Brewer rose and extended a hand. 'Congratulations, Dawes. Maybe you can't see it right now, but you're about to take part in mankind's greatest adventure. Thank you, Miss Donaldson.'

Miss Donaldson left. Brewer sat down again, gesturing Dawes toward a comfortable pneumochair.

'Well?' Brewer asked. 'You're sore as hell, aren't you?'

'Am I supposed to be happy?'

Brewer shrugged. 'If you wanted to go to the stars, you'd have volunteered. It's a rough break, youngster.

How old are you?'

'Twenty.'

'You're still young enough to adjust. Some mornings I have men in their thirties come in, men with families.

You'd be surprised how many of them want to blow me up. You aren't married, are you?'

'No, sir.'

'Parents?'

'They live in Cincinnati. I've phoned them already.'

'You don't figure you have any grounds for disqualification, then.'

Dawes shook his head. In a quiet voice he said, 'I can't get out of it. I'm resigned to going. But that isn't going to make me like it.'

'We assume that,' Brewer said. 'But we also assume that you won't spend all your time sulking when you ought to be colonizing. You don't sulk for long on an alien world and stay alive.' He shook his head. 'If you think you've got troubles, think about the last man selected in this district. Father of three children. Age thirty-nine years, eleven months, three weeks. One week to go and he'd be ineligible, but the computer picked him. He said it was a frame-up. But he went, he did.'

'Is that supposed to make me feel better?' Dawes asked.

'I don't know,' said Brewer, sighing. 'They tell me misery loves company. You probably feel awfully sorry for yourself, and I don't blame you.'

'Will I be allowed to see my parents again?'

'You can fly to Cincy this afternoon, if you like. For the next week you'll be accompanied by a bureau guard. As a precaution, you understand. Naturally, he'll give you as much privacy as you want - in case there may be a young lady you would like to pay a farewell visit to, or—'

'Just my parents,' Dawes said.

'All right. Whatever. You have seven days. Make the most of them. You'll get a full physical next door right now. Maybe you're no longer eligible.'

'Small chance of that!'

'We can always hope, eh, Mike?'

'Why do that? What do you care whether I go or not?

Do you know what it's like to be ripped up and tossed out into space? You're over age; you're safe.'

Brewer smiled sadly. 'I don't have a good heart; I never was eligible. But that doesn't mean I don't know what you're going through now. My wife was selected ten years ago. Come with me, Mike. The doctor will have a look at you.'