Alien Earth. Megan Lindholm

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СКАЧАТЬ her, “but not right and wrong.” Connie pulled her mind away from trying to understand that. Rules she could comprehend and obey. Rules were simple. It was right and wrong that mystified her sometimes and had led to her need for Readjustment. Last time she had been on Delta Station it had been illegal for plants to be grown for other than oxygen production. Only professionals handled fauna. Now there were plants everywhere, being treated as decorations, and obviously being handled by laymen. If it had been illegal, hadn’t it been wrong? And if it was legal now, did that mean it was right? She felt a light sweat misting her palms and the back of her neck. She got up and began to walk again, trying to remember Tug’s directions for her destination.

      She felt a sudden, almost-dizzying homesickness for the ship and the Waitsleep womb. Rules didn’t change on shipboard, not on the Evangeline. John was abrasive and bullying, yes, but his strictness was in itself a reassurance. Nothing was going to change on Evangeline, not as long as John was skipper. It was probably a personality defect, but ever since her Adjustment, she had found that she didn’t care how people treated her, as long as it was predictable. Consistency was all she asked anymore.

      Unfortunately, consistency seemed to be the last thing she would get from Tug. Within the familiarity of the ship, his bizarre behavior had seemed merely capricious. Now that she was off the ship and performing his little errand, it had begun to seem strangely threatening. She took a calming breath and glanced around the unfamiliar corridor. She checked a clock set high in the wall. Seventeen forty-three. She wasn’t due back at the ship for another four hours or so. The familiar roilings of stress churned within her as she warred with the necessity of making a decision. She could pick up the recordings for Tug, and it would be behind her and done. And she’d have two or three empty hours to aimlessly wander the station before she went back to the ship. Or she could wander aimlessly for two or three hours, stewing about Tug’s errand, and then do it and go back to the ship. Neither schedule appealed to her. She finally decided to complete Tug’s errand and then simply go back to the ship. Would John notice how little time she had spent ashore and wonder about it? Probably not. As long as she didn’t bother him, he didn’t seem to notice anything about her.

      For about the tenth time, she drew the memo from her flight suit pocket and consulted it. It was getting harder to read; the filmy paper stuck to her sweaty hands and tore as she peeled it loose. For an instant she shared John’s resentment at the efficiency of the newest biodegradables; then she sternly squelched such nonsense and studied the address.

      “Melody Court, residence C-72. Main Corridor G until you reach Orchestra, left on Flute to Melody, down on Melody.” She smoothed torn edges back together. “Orange door, wrought-work grille.” Flute. That had been her mistake, then. She was on Piccolo. She sighed, turned, and trudged back the way she had come. Even the mild gravity of the station was bothering her. She’d better do more exercising on her next trip out.

      She reached Orchestra and consulted a directory there. Flute was only a few intersections away. The walk would be good for her, she told herself sternly. And no one was staring at her; it was all her imagination. People were moving briskly about their own errands, or chatting amiably with one another. She turned down Flute.

      And felt the change. It wasn’t just that this corridor was being kept a degree or two warmer, or that the piped-in music gradually ceased. Those were subtleties she might have missed, but not the handrails that ran down the center of the corridor, or the increased frequency of benches and com stations. On one public patio, several old men and two old women were playing cards. A niggling suspicion began to form in the back of Connie’s mind. She passed a bald old man, and then a woman using a glide-support; Connie paused to wait out a wave of panic. Retirement residences. That’s what this section of the station was.

      Melody Court opened out before her. She took the ramp down to it, then stepped off it and forced herself to keep walking. She had to look at the memo film again. Her hands were sweating so badly it clung to them like burn-wrap. C-72. Orange door. Find it, get in, get the recordings, and get out. Simple enough. No need to panic. They were just people, even if they were old. Horribly old. She didn’t have to feel bad about her uneasiness, didn’t need to feel guilty. Many prepubes like herself had a difficult time relating to anyone who was sexually mature; her Adjustment counselor had assured her she’d scored within the normal range of stress ratings there. Of course, that stress was minor compared to her anxiety attacks around the elderly; Connie had been guiltily grateful that they’d never thought to test her reactions there. She knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t help it. Old people scared her. She hated their restlessness, their constant questioning of the way things were, their numerous complaints. She hated the way they always seemed to focus in on her, as if they could sense her fear and distrust of them. She had only been twenty-three the first time it happened. She had been out on her own for almost the first time, walking alone in the University district. And some old person, so old she couldn’t even tell if it had been a male or a female, had tottered up to her and demanded, “Two hundred and seven years, and for what? For what, I ask you?” Connie had just stood there, frozen with anxiety by the strange behavior, while the old person muttered and ranted and finally walked away, shaking a fist in the air. It had been her very first glimpse of someone that old; nothing she had seen since then had ever changed her opinion about them.

      And Melody Court was full of them; this section of the station had been engineered for them. All the little tables with chairs where old people could gather and socialize, the open arcade of reader carrels, the large screen on the wall charting out Today’s Recreational Opportunities. And everywhere, old people, ignoring all these amenities to simply sit on the benches together and be old. Everywhere, the signs of their discontent. A bench had been unfastened from the floor and overturned. Sanded-out graffiti was bleeding through the finish on one wall, something protesting enforced retirement, and, farther on, an obscene sneer at the Medical Merit plan. A handwritten suggestion that if the Conservancy approved of Timely Termination, they should try it themselves. Connie jerked her eyes away from it, wondering if they were watching her read it, and studying her face to see how she felt about it. Annoyed, that’s how I feel, she wanted to tell them. You were born into this plan, you grew up within the system, but when you get old, you all want to trash it because it doesn’t focus on you anymore. Senile selfishness, that’s what it all was.

      There was something about the wilting obsolescence of their bodies, the saggy breasts of the old women, soft hanging bellies, and wrinkled faces. The gravity of Castor or Pollux would have made it worse, but even in station grav it was bad enough. And the smell. No one else ever mentioned it, but she was sure she wasn’t imagining it. A used smell, like sweat and damp cloth and wet hair, a smell she somehow connected with sexuality past its prime. It seemed monstrously ironic that one had to endure the hormonal storms of puberty warping your intellect and logic, only to be physically ravaged by the withdrawal of those same hormones years later. It must be like surviving some terrible crippling disease like they had in ancient times, weathering it only to become a hobbling shadow of your former self. Connie averted her eyes from the sight of an old man leaning heavily on an old woman’s arm as they meandered down the corridor.

      Orange door. C-72. And there was a wrought-metal grille over it. She reached through the metal to pull the chime lever, then stood waiting to be let in. She let her fingers idly trace the wrought work, trying to enjoy the abstract design, only to be surprised by the sturdiness of the metal. This was no decoration. Forgetting herself for a moment, she took hold of the grille and tried to rattle it. It wouldn’t budge. It was cold and rough and real under her hands, and the most antisocial thing she’d ever encountered. If a prepube or a pube had put up such a barrier, they’d have been taken away for Readjustment before the day was out. But a postpube could get away with almost anything. And usually did. Frequently Readjustment for postpubes was just not cost effective. That was the most often cited reason. The one that was quoted in undertones was that Adjustment didn’t work after a certain age; the personality just gave way and withdrew under the pressures. And when that happened, a humane and timely termination was the only possible prescription left. What else could they expect?

      Connie СКАЧАТЬ