Race Against Time (20 page)

The field was a waste again. This time not even the weeds could grow.

"As with most conflicts of national interest, it came swiftly to war. Conventional weapons were banned, however, for they were themselves formidable polluters. This war was muted, undeclared, apolitical—but still savage. The killing stroke was bacterial—a plague strain against which the populaces of the favored nations were inoculated in advance."

The scene showed a man staggering through the barren field. His face was swollen and greenish, his eyes so bloodshot as to have no whites. He clutched at his throat as though he could not breathe and fell, to gasp a few times before shuddering to stillness.

"The inoculant did not reach every citizen of the favored," the narrator observed, "nor was it denied every citizen of the unfavored." There was no picture for that, of course, since only local scenes were shown.

"Ninety percent of the outcast peoples died in the first strike, and twenty percent of the poor, the old, and the racial, ethnic, or religious minorities in the favored nations."

Betsy turned to John, white-faced. "They played politics—with genocide!" she whispered, appalled.

John felt cold. "They'll pay—
we'll
pay," he said. "We
have
paid—that's why this country is a desert now."

"The few survivors of that bacterial strike in the unfavored regions turned ferociously against the favored and succeeded in destroying the secret factories and laboratories that manufactured the inoculant. Both plague-strain and inoculant were artificial. The human body tended to manufacture antibodies against both. This hardly slowed the plague, because it was usually fatal within sixty hours of infection; but it nullified the inoculant in the system in the course of months. Every three months a revised formula had to be administered to counteract this. Thus with the loss of the laboratories the favored were doomed to the same extinction as the unfavored."

"Enough!" Betsy cried, stepping forward to cut off the sight of well-dressed white men and women and children staggering through the field, gasping and falling. Again there were only glimpses and snatches of lecture: world population falling from billions to millions, "pures" of any color systematically hunted and butchered, the entire world laid waste. The field became figuratively buried in bones. By the time the survivors had renovated a factory and produced a trickle of new inoculant, the plague had spent itself. Perhaps one percent of the population of the world had turned out to be naturally immune.

In the virtual absence of man, however, the environment slowly recovered. The land turned green again. Flowers appeared between the skeletons of the Newton site.

Man survived in the form of the Standards. Naturally resistant to the plague and of indeterminate race, they shaped their culture around an intense aversion to waste or pollution in any form. They had few animals and fewer other resources, but the complete technology of mankind was available. In a century they had recovered the level of affluence enjoyed by their predecessors, though only a fraction of the numbers. This was the first century S.E., Standard Era.

By the end of the second century S.E. they had surpassed the previous pinnacle of civilization handily. Their numbers remained deliberately low, and conservation and renovation remained their effective religion, but their society became stagnant. This did not disturb the majority, for that was the definition of the malady: that the majority sought no change. But an activist minority feared for the future and conjectured that the same rigid uniformity that promoted peace and plenty and an amicable environment was stifling the creativity and drive of the species.

There were, it developed, procreative banks dating from the period when many races existed on earth. It was possible to nurture infants of those races who would, genetically, be as "pure" as any races had ever been, though their societies were long extinct. Here on the Newton site an imaginary town was built, incorporating all the known elements of one of those societies. John's town of Newton appeared in the image.

John and Betsy, shocked, did not need to listen to the rest. They now understood their place in this scheme. Parentless and rootless, they were called monuments, to justify the project and nullify the formidable Standard prejudice against their deviant type. They were called living monuments, but they were more than that. Much more.

"Now we know," Pei said. "There may have been mistakes in the program, and perhaps they underestimated us, but we remain very much in the Standard world."

"Mistakes!"
Humé said. "That blunder when Meilan was sent to visit me—total incompetence."

"Not to mention things like letting Roman history leak into American history—and never correcting it," John said.

"To a flea, the lion seems stupid," Ala murmured. "Yet the flea needs the lion more than the lion needs the flea."

"They underestimated us because their culture is in stasis," Betsy said. "A planetary bureaucracy that can't even keep track of its ID cards or organize an effective pursuit!"

"Perhaps they are merely more civilized than we," Meilan said. "They would hesitate to use such violent methods and would not know how to react to violence. So they delayed while we continued."

"So maybe we
are
different," John said. "Those procreative banks—they wouldn't have represented the dull or unfit, exactly. High I.Q. stock. Maybe we
will
accomplish more—given the chance."

"We shall
take
the chance!" Humé said.

"But there is nothing left for us on earth!" Ala protested. "We have nowhere to go but Standard."

"Surely you realize that Standard
is
earth," Pei said.

John choked back his exclamation, hiding his ignorance.

Meilan nodded agreement. "Remember those alternate coordinates? We wondered how the system could work, when each coordinate identified
two
places on the globe. Now we know that one is always for Standard, the other for earth. The Standards renovated their own half but left the rest as a perpetual monument to the mistakes of the past. So that man would never forget."

John was dismayed. "So we never really left the planet! We just spiraled around for two weeks! I never thought to check the proximity of Standard once we were on our way."

"It was a necessary period," Pei said kindly. "We had to have time to get to know each other."

"Necessary!" Betsy said indignantly. "It was a dirty trick!"

John liked her better for that.

"Necessary," Pei repeated firmly. "We
are
of different cultures, and they do not mix readily except when under common stress. The conventions of dress, diet, religion...."

John remembered. Yes, they were different—and he was not about to refute his basic beliefs for the sake of group unity. Betsy was difficult, but she shared his views in the important matters. But what common ground could they have—except that of Standard culture? The language might be the same, but so much else was dismayingly different!

"We
can
work together," Pei said. "For the sake of our freedom, we can compromise—among ourselves, not the Standards. We have done it so far."

"If we become a group of our own, isolated," Ala said slowly, "and married between the races, and our children did the same—would not our lineage become Standard?"

That needed no answer. The Standards were the result of the mixing of the races of mankind. The moment the purebreds crossed the racial lines, their distinction vanished.

"I think," Meilan said quietly, "that the enclaves are a worthy project, after all."

And there it was. What could they accomplish as refugees that would improve on what the activist Standards had in mind? The world of the Standards was the real world now, and that was where the changes had to be made. If race were the answer to species vitality, it would be a crime to destroy what had been done so far, but it rankled John mightily. He had fought hard for his independence; was he now meekly to acquiesce, admitting that all his aspirations had been wrong?

"But that leaves us even more isolated—from the Standards and from each other," Betsy said. "Whom will our children marry?"

"There are other cells in the procreative banks," the ship's communicator said, startling them. "If the pilot group succeeds, many more purebreds will be raised, replacing the Standards presently in the enclaves."

It would succeed if only they let it, John realized. Gradually the enclaves would become genuine, as more and more true Caucasians, Negroids, and Mongoloids filled them. Why, then, did he still have this urge to fight?

"But we don't have to live in ignorance!" he cried. "We can visit each other, we can study the Standard technology without being corrupted by it—" He broke off, realizing that his words sounded very much like agreement instead of dissent. His spirit was more aggressive than his voice! Yet a part of him was looking forward to seeing Mom and Dad again, going on to college....

He could tell by their silence that the others were accepting it also. Let them all go back—for a while. Soon they would be grown, more knowledgeable, better able to cope with the world of the Standards.

His eye caught Humé's. Slowly the African winked. John did not need to look at Pei and Meilan to know that the empire of T'ang agreed. Guerrilla tactics: Bide your time until the moment was right. Then strike.

The Standards did not need race; they needed an example. The world did not need monuments; it needed action. All history was witness to that! John smiled. The Standards didn't know it, but they had wrought well. There would be a world of action—at the proper time.

Canute came up to him, tail wagging halfheartedly. John looked over the dog's head to see Humé watching. "I think you'll be happier in Kanem, coach dog," John said sadly. "I have no right to hold you. Go with Humé." He blinked to keep the tears from forming. There was a society to save; he couldn't weaken now! "But come visit me...." He could not continue.

"He will," Ala said. "Often. I will see to it."

Now Betsy was smiling, too.

Copyright © 1973 by Piers Anthony

ISBN: 0-812-53101-9