With a rod of iron a par.., p.61
With a Rod of Iron: A Parable, page 61
“My name’s Fred. Where you going?” He was already loading the bags on his hand truck.
“Hobson’s Planet,” said Leah, enthusiastically.
“Got a bunch of them today; new place just opening up. Hear it’s a nice world.”
“Yes—that’s what we’re told.”
“I’ve thought about emigrating,” Fred said. He began pulling the load of luggage away, forcing them to follow him.
“Really?” Eban hardly cared.
“But I got a good job, and I’m happy here; I don’t owe anybody anything.”
“That’s good,” said Eban absently. “See to it that you stay that way. You never want to take on debt—never ever.”
“So I hear. But it feels good when you’re out a debt, doesn’t it?”
“Just like when you stop hitting yourself with the proverbial hammer.” Eban reached into his pocket and pulled out a few one dollar coins. Fred took them gracefully and left with a smile and a wave of his hat.
Grim-faced attendants behind the counter took their bags, tagged them, and tossed them onto a conveyor belt, which pulled them behind a door. Taking their name, the woman at the counter tapped at a keyboard, then handed them two strips of cardboard; at first glance they resembled bookmarks.
“You’ll be departing from Translocator Eleven.” She pointed to the right. “Just follow this hall; you’ll see signs.”
Eban nodded thanks and they headed the indicated direction. Leah slipped her hand in his and gave him a squeeze, grinning at him. “Aren’t you excited?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re still worried, aren’t you?”
“I don’t want this to be a one way trip.”
“You plan on coming back? You know we’re required to spend at least a hundred years—”
“I know, I know. I read the contract.” Hopeless exasperation overwhelmed him. He had eliminated one set of debts, only to enslave himself on the other side. But the contract was specific, and he couldn’t complain about it. Not only did Lambert pay all his debts and moving expenses, not only did it set him up in a prefab home, but it also denied him the chance of going into debt again for a hundred years. If he couldn’t learn from his mistakes, and gain new habits in that time...then he deserved to suffer whatever horrors awaited the chronically indebted.
Bankruptcy and disgrace.
More than a thousand people were milling about Translocator Eleven. Family and friends of each departing couple and group were gathered to see them off. The thousand colonists were joined with two or three or more times their number of well-wishers.
“Doesn’t anyone have to work?” he queried out loud.
Leah shrugged. “Maybe our folks just don’t like us?”
He shook his head. “We never borrowed from them, or asked them for any help,” he pointed out. “They have no reason to resent us. They just had to work. People have to work for a living; there’s no shame in that.” They’d said their goodbyes to family in a big party last night.
The air thrummed with the assembled voices, a burbling sound like streams of water: unclear and indistinct, he couldn’t even pick out a conversation from the cacophony.
No place to sit; he found a spot to stand and took it; Leah crowded close to him. Luggage was being handled separately; chances were, it had already made the trip.
Hobson’s Planet had been named after an engineer that had something to do with perfecting translocator technology. It was the first planet of Wolf 13, a yellowish star rarely visible from the northern hemisphere and nearly a hundred light years distant. An open telecommunications path through the translocator meant they would remain updated on news, entertainment, and information; just because they were leaving Earth didn’t mean they were leaving its resources, intellectual or otherwise. The information of the worlds’ libraries would travel with them, squeezed into computer readable data. The library on Hobson’s planet would have no books, no paper, and no maps on the walls. Instead, it would consist of a bunch of terminals, all linked to the central computer, one terminal for every home. Through that, they could access everything. Hell, Eban hadn’t had such resources available in his office at the University. In many ways, therefore, the move was actually a move up for him; he was improving his status. And he’d become the founder of their first university. No shame in that.
“The founders of civilizations always wind up with certain perks. You’ll be no different.” He remembered Loran’s words from their training sessions in preparation for this day. He still wasn’t certain if he believed them.
Only now did Eban become aware of the man staring at him; he was just starting to stare back, when Leah bumped his elbow and pointed.
“I see him. What’s he looking at?”
“I don’t know. He makes me uncomfortable, though.”
“You think he’s staring at you?” Anger surged; he was suddenly ready to defend his woman from a lecher.
“No...he’s looking at you.”
That had been Eban’s first impression. As their eyes met, the stranger across the room blinked and jiggled the arm of his companion, a lovely young woman. Momentarily, Eban felt the urge to let his own eyes wander, but he resisted.
The stranger made his way slowly toward them.
“Have you ever been on the moon?” asked the stranger.
“Who hasn’t?”
“Well, yeah...” His face reddened. “My name’s Brian—I think we met before—a long time ago.”
Eban just stared at the man. “I can’t say I remember you.”
“Your name’s Eban, right? And your wife’s Leah?”
Eban nodded uncertainly. Try as he might, he still couldn’t recall the face. Letting his attention linger on his companion, he felt certain that had he ever met her before, he’d remember. Like most men, he was not quick to forget a pretty face.
“I was alone when you met me,” said Brian, going on, as if trying to justify himself. “That is, Shoshanna wasn’t with me.”
“He’s mentioned you to me,” she said, reaching out to shake their hands.
“I still don’t—” began Eban.
“I was trying to convince you that Jesus was the Antichrist—and I showed up late at your hotel room because, well—you had gotten me to thinking.” He paused. “Obviously, I’ve changed my opinion about Jesus.”
Nothing seemed obvious in this exchange, but Eban kept his mouth shut.
“My parents went to New Earth,” he added. “I haven’t seen them since. Really, I hadn’t seen them for a couple years prior to that. They disowned me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s an old wound.” He shook his head. “They purposely cut off their link with Earth. They wanted to be safe from all corruption.” He chuckled, an oddly bitter sound.
“I told you New Earth wasn’t an accident,” said Leah, poking at Eban’s ribs.
“I know.”
“They always give that disclaimer,” said Shoshanna. “But no one believes it was an accident.”
“Why doesn’t someone try to reestablish contact...” began Eban.
A voice interrupted from a hidden speaker: “Translocator Eleven will be opening in ten seconds. Please prepare for transfer; have your tickets ready for verification.” The voice was hollow, female, and artificial.
Eban looked down at the cardboard strip in his hand and gripped it even tighter. Leah shivered beside him.
“I don’t know why no one tries to reach them,” said Brian as they joined the line leading toward the suddenly open translocator.
Eban caught occasional glimpses of green or blue—but nothing distinct. He could swear he was feeling an occasional breeze, or catching a whiff of cool air tainted with the fresh grass and flowers.
Brian went on. “It wouldn’t be hard.” He paused. “Maybe it’s just that nobody really cares. It doesn’t seem important. Not even to me.”
“You wouldn’t want to see your parents?” asked Leah.
“Not really.” Brian had a peculiar expression on his face. “I died that day. Or they died. It depends on your perspective. There’s no going back; I wouldn’t even want to try.”
* * *
The sun set behind the mountains, spraying beautiful pinks and reds across the cloud-ruffled sky.
Only it wasn’t the sun going down, not the sun he had lived with all his life; but in looking at it, there was nothing about the scene that appeared out of place; nothing in it that didn’t fit what he had been accustomed to every day of his life.
Certainly there was an added spring in his step, thanks to a fifteen percent lower gravity; and yes, the air seemed fresher, more invigorating, thanks to a slightly higher percentage of oxygen. The native grasses and trees, though not quite like anything on Earth, were peculiar only to specialists. To his untrained eye, the trees might as well have been elms, and the grass like the green stuff he saw anywhere. Colorful flowers exploded with brilliance.
There were native animals on this world, too. He had heard the sound of birds, or what he assumed to be birds in the background ever since they’d arrived. Sometimes he caught glimpses of flapping wings against the blue and he’d even seen a brown and furry creature streak across the ground.
The temperate zone extended to the seventieth parallels north and south; icecaps existed only during the winter months, and in the region they had picked, there would be no snow, not unless they chose to climb the mountains; with their peaks reaching nearly ten miles into the air, they were perpetually dusted at a certain level. Above the fifty thousand foot level, however, the air was too thin even for ice to exist. So the mountains looked like they were wearing necklaces of white.
“I always wanted extra hours in my day,” laughed Leah coming up alongside him. He had been in the process of putting nails in the side of his house when he had gotten distracted by the sunset.
“Thirty-one hours,” he sighed. “That’s going to take some getting used to—”
“I won’t have any trouble. We can sleep longer. It’ll be great!”
“Our old watches don’t keep proper time.”
“They gave us new ones,” she pointed out. And it was true. The new clocks divided the day into twenty-four hours, with correspondingly longer seconds to make up the difference. So the new hours dragged by.
“So it’s still twenty-four hours—they’re just longer, you know.” She bounced around. “Isn’t it great?”
“What, the time?”
“No, silly, the new house.”
In the week since they’d arrived, they’d managed to put most of their new house together. The instructions were easy enough, and between the two of them, in the lower gravity, they’d managed to do most of the work themselves. Brian and Shoshanna had gotten the house next door, so they had helped each other on those parts that required more hands than just what two people could provide.
Outside of some of the decorative molding which he was currently hammering on, the exterior was done. Electricity wouldn’t come for another day or two. The fusion plant was up and running, but it was going to take awhile to string the electric lines and bury them.
“It’s our house,” she said, grabbing his arm and squeezing. “That’s why it’s so neat. We own it; no one can ever take it away. And someday, we’ll make it bigger—or we’ll build a new one someplace else. We can have a mansion; we can live like kings. We own the whole planet—just us and a thousand other people.”
“We’ll get more immigrants.”
“Not that many. Most people who aren’t in debt don’t come—and after the first wave, you can’t be in debt. We’re it. Us and our children.”
“If we ever have children...” He sucked in a deep breath, regretting his words even as he said them. For the briefest moment, her face fell, then she grinned again and laughed.
“We’ll have children. You just wait and see.”
* * *
Leah sat in her neighbor’s living room, the sound of a ticking clock filling up the space between the words that seemed to come few and far between. “We need to get to know our neighbors” he’d said. But now, sitting in the stranger’s house, she wondered just how good an idea it was. What if the neighbors didn’t want to meet you?
Eban had never considered that possibility.
“We were nearly forty thousand in debt.” She was trying to sound cheerful. “We couldn’t see any way out.”
“Was that including what you owed on your house?”
“We didn’t own a house. We couldn’t ever afford it, and even if we could, our credit was so bad it would have been impossible to get a loan.”
The stranger nodded her head. Her name was Joan and she claimed to be about fifty; she looked to be eighteen and she’d never known a world without Jesus.
“We were better off than you. If we’d sold our house, we could probably have paid everything off—but things were rapidly going from bad to worse. I’d just gotten laid off, and I was having trouble finding a new job.” She looked embarrassed, and went on quickly. “With only Stan’s income, we weren’t going to make it; the idea of emigrating—well, it just came to me one night while I was watching TV—there was a documentary about the first offworld colony. When Stan got home—he was working two jobs—I asked him...” She let her words trail off. “One thing led to another, and anyhow, here we are.”
“You couldn’t get a job?” Leah was surprised. They weren’t in the middle of a recession at the moment; in fact, there was a labor shortage.
“I lost my other job, with cause,” she said, face brightening to a deeper red.
“You were fired?”
“Yes.” Her face stayed red. “I’d really rather not talk about it.”
Leah held up her hand. “I understand.” She spoke the two words, but she really didn’t understand; not at all. But what else could she say?
“I feel useless,” said Joan suddenly. “Do you ever feel useless?”
Leah nodded, deciding that was the appropriate response. Sometimes she did feel a little down, but...
“I’ve felt that way ever since I lost...ever since I got fired.” She paused, a faraway look in her eyes. “God, I have trouble facing that. I know I screwed up, I know it’s my fault, and there’s nothing I can do about it. If I...I’ve never been particularly competent. I’ve had trouble holding onto jobs all my life. Even the most simple jobs, I manage to screw up. I break things, I lose things, I forget things. They tell me to do things and then don’t tell me how and for some reason I’m too afraid to ask them how, and then I mess up and they get mad at me.” Her shoulders hunched, and she grabbed her knees with her hands. “I feel like I’m the most useless person who ever lived. I can’t hold a job, I can’t pay my bills; everything I touch turns out wrong.” She glanced up at Leah. “I’m afraid to move, hardly; I never go outside, I never visit anyone.”
“You’re visiting with me.”
“You came here. I’d never go to your place. Not because I dislike you.” She added the last phrase hurriedly. “But...I’d be afraid to go over to your place; I’d be afraid I’d come at a bad time, that you’d be busy, that I’d interrupt you, and you’d be polite and not tell me, all the while resenting my intrusion.” She paused, sucked in a little breath, then sighed. “I’m so screwed up, I don’t hardly know which end is up anymore.”
“How long were you out of work?”
“Nearly a year; that’s too long—ridiculously long. People knew—they knew I’d been fired, and they knew that’s why I couldn’t find any more work. Once you’ve been fired, there’s no help for you; you’re screwed, your life’s in the toilet, and you might as well curl up and die. There’s no point in going on.”
“But—”
“I know; death’s impossible. It doesn’t make me stop longing for it. I keep thinking about how peaceful it must be. The ones who’ve been Resurrected, they’re like the Raptured. They never have troubles, they never struggle, and everything always goes right for them. That’s the way I wish my life were; I want everything to be right—but everything is far from being all right.” She was silent for several long seconds. “It’s my fault that we’re even here. If I hadn’t lost my job, my husband wouldn’t have had to leave his job and come out to the middle of nowhere to start all over. I don’t know why he stayed with me. He should have divorced me, let me suffer alone, to take the consequences for my stupidity.”
“Have you sought counseling?” asked Leah finally.
“Oh, like some psychiatrist is going to make all these mistakes of mine just disappear.”
“No. But I was thinking in terms of finding a healthy way of dealing with them.”
“A healthy way of dealing with them? There’s a healthy way of being a miserable rotten failure? Like I can undo it?”
“You’re starting over here,” said Leah. “They hardly let us bring anything with us—not much more than the clothes on our backs. You’ve got a fresh start, with a clean slate, on a new planet.”
“But I left wreckage behind me.”
“Lambert paid for all your debts,” said Leah.
“Financial debts, yes.” She bit her lower lip. “But there’s so much more to it than that.”
“But Jesus has taken care of our other debts,” said Leah. “Sin’s not an issue with him.”
“I know all about Jesus!” she snapped, eyes flashing.
For a moment, Leah was taken aback, but she quickly pressed forward. “Do you know Jesus?”
“I’ve known all about him since I could barely walk. What a silly question.”
“You misunderstood me. I didn’t ask you if you knew about Jesus; I asked if you knew Jesus.”
“I don’t see what the big difference is.”
“You know about the President of the UN security council, right?”
“Of course; she’s Mary Lee Mobotu...”
“Do you know her?”
“Huh? You’ve got to be kidding. I was a waitress in a Denny’s restaurant! I barely got through high school. You think a woman like her would give me the time of day?”
“So you knew about her, but you didn’t know her.”
“Well of course...”
“And so you know about Jesus, but you don’t know Jesus. See the difference?”
