“But there is just one thing I want to ask you before I go—why do you bother to live, anyhow? I would think that any one of you would welcome an end to your silly, futile lives just from sheer boredom. That’s all.” He turned back to the bailiff. “Come on, you.”
“One moment, David MacKinnon.” The senior judge held up a restraining hand. “We have listened to you. Although custom does not compel it, I am minded to answer some of your statements. Will you listen?”
Unwilling, but less willing to appear loutish in the face of a request so reasonable, the younger man consented.
The judge commenced to speak in gentle, scholarly words appropriate to a lecture room. “David MacKinnon, you have spoken in a fashion that doubtless seems wise to you. Nevertheless, your words were wild, and spoken in haste. I am moved to correct your obvious misstatements of fact. The Covenant is not a superstition, but a simple temporal contract entered into by those same revolutionists for pragmatic reasons. They wished to insure the maximum possible liberty for every person.
“You yourself have enjoyed that liberty. No possible act, nor mode of conduct, was forbidden to you, as long as your action did not damage another. Even an act specifically prohibited by law could not be held against you unless the State was able to prove that your particular act damaged, or caused evident danger of damage, to a particular individual.
“Even if one should willfully and knowingly damage another—as you have done—the State does not attempt to sit in moral judgment, nor to punish. We have not the wisdom to do that, and the chain of injustices that have always followed, such moralistic coercion endanger the liberty of all. Instead, the convicted is given the choice of submitting to psychological readjustment to correct his tendency to wish to damage others, or of having the State withdraw itself from him—of sending him to Coventry!
“You complain that our way of living is dull and unromantic, and imply that we have deprived you of excitement to which you feel entitled. You are free to hold and express your aesthetic opinion of our way of living, but you must not expect us to live to suit your tastes. You are free to seek danger and adventure if you wish—there is danger still in experimental laboratories; there is hardship in the mountains of the Moon, and death in the jungles of Venus—but you are not free to expose us to the violence of your nature.”
“Why make so much of it?” MacKinnon protested contemptuously. “You talk as if I had committed a murder. I simply punched a man in the nose!”
“I agree that individual deserved it,” the judge continued calmly, “and am not displeased at his misfortune, but your psychometrical tests show that you believe yourself capable of judging morally your fellow citizens and feel justified in personally correcting and punishing their lapses. You are a dangerous individual, David MacKinnon, a danger to all of us, for we cannot predict what damage you may do next.
“You refuse treatment—therefore we withdraw our society from you. To Coventry with you.” He turned to the bailiff. “Take him away.”
MacKinnon peered out of a forward port of the big transport helicopter with repressed excitement in his heart. There! That must be it—that black band in the distance. The helicopter drew closer, and he became certain that he was seeing the Barrier—the mysterious, impenetrable wall that divided the United States from the reservation known as Coventry.
His guard looked up from the magazine he was reading and followed his gaze. “Nearly there, I see,” he said pleasantly. “Well, it won’t be long now.”
“It can’t be any too soon for me!”
The guard looked at him quizzically, but with tolerance. “Pretty anxious to get on with it, eh?”
MacKinnon held his head high. “You’ve never brought a man to the gateway more anxious to pass through!”
“Hm-m-m—maybe. They all say that, you know. Nobody goes through the gate against his own will.”
“I mean it!”
“They all do. Some of them come back, just the same.”
“Say—maybe you can give me some dope as to conditions inside.”
“Sorry,” the guard said, shaking his head, “but that is no concern of the United States, nor any of its employees. You’ll know soon enough.”
MacKinnon frowned a little. “It seems strange. I tried inquiring, but found no one who would admit that they had any notion about the inside. And yet you say that some come out. Surely some of them must talk—”
“That’s simple,” smiled the guard, “part of their reorientation is a subconscious compulsion not to discuss their experiences.”
“That’s a pretty scabby trick. Why should the government deliberately conspire to prevent me, and people like me, from knowing what we are going up against?”
“Listen, buddy,” the guard answered, with mild exasperation, “you’ve told the rest of us to go to the devil. You’ve told us that you could get along without us. You are being given plenty of living room in some of the best land on this continent, and you are being allowed to take with you everything that you own, or your credit could buy. What the deuce else do you expect?”
MacKinnon’s face settled in obstinate lines. “What assurance have I that there will be any land left for me?”
“That’s your problem. The government sees to it that there is plenty of land for the population. The divvy-up is something you rugged individualists have to settle among yourselves. You’ve turned down our type of social co-operation; why the hell should you expect the safeguards of our organization?” The guard turned back to his reading and ignored him.
They landed on a small field which lay close under the blank black wall. No gate was apparent, but a guardhouse was located at the side of the field. MacKinnon was the only passenger. While his escort went over to the guardhouse, he descended from the passenger compartment and went around to the freight hold.
Two members of the crew were letting down a ramp from the cargo port. When MacKinnon drew near, one of them eyed him and said, “Okay, there’s your stuff.”
He sized up the job and said, “It’s quite a lot, isn’t it? I’ll need some help. Will you give me a hand with it?”
The crew member addressed paused to light a cigarette before replying, “It’s your stuff. If you want it, get it out. We take off in ten minutes.” The two walked around him and re-entered the ship.
“Why, you—” MacKinnon shut up and kept the rest of his anger to himself. The surly louts! Gone was the faintest trace of regret at leaving civilization. He’d show them! He could get along without them.
But it was twenty minutes and more before he stood beside his heaped-up belongings and watched the ship rise. Fortunately the skipper had not been adamant about the time limit. MacKinnon turned and commenced loading his steel tortoise. Under the romantic influence of the classic literature of a bygone day he had considered using a string of burros, but had been unable to find a zoo that would sell them to him.
The vehicle he had chosen was not an unreasonable substitute for burros. It was extremely rugged, easy to operate, and almost foolproof. It drew its power from six square yards of sun-power screens on its low curved roof. These drove a constant-load motor, or, when halted, replenished the storage battery against cloudy weather or night travel. The bearings were “everlasting,” and every moving part, other than the caterpillar treads and the controls, was sealed up, secure from inexpert tinkering.
It could maintain a steady six miles per hour on smooth, level pavement. When confronted by hills, or rough terrain, it did not stop, but simply slowed until the task demanded equaled its steady power output.