“They sure don’t waste any time, do they?” a man near me remarked, and I had to agree.
Reflecting for a moment on the passengers I did realize one odd thing about them that separated them from any passengers on any interplanetary craft I’d ever known. None of them, not one, carried any sort of luggage—and there certainly had not been time to load any before we got off. In fact, none of them had anything at all except the flimsy-looking clothes they had worn.
We were well clear of the craft and watched it come to life, then rise very quickly. The ship was gone in an instant, yet all of us followed it with our eyes, continuing to stare at the exact spot where it had vanished into the deep blue sky. It was as if that shuttle represented our last link with the old culture, our last line to the places we’d been and the people we’d known—and the people we had been, too.
I was among the first to look down and spotted a very attractive woman approaching us. Wearing only one of those flimsy but colorful skirts and what looked like a pair of flat sandals, she was extremely tall—almost 180 centimeters, surely—with long black hair, her skin tanned very dark, almost black.
“Hello!” she called out in a deep, throaty, yet pleasant voice. “I am your orientation guide and teacher. Will you all please follow me and we’ll get you settled hi?”
A few of the others continued to look skyward as if spellbound or hypnotized for a few moments, but eventually all of us turned and followed her. We were all survivors and life went on.
The Garden of Eden description of Lilith I’d heard was mostly an impression of a warm, resort-type world. At least that had been how I’d pictured it. But nearly naked women and grass huts were a bit more primitive than I’d imagined—or been used to.
Yet grass huts they were, with yellow reed walls and thatched roofs. I could see the others having thoughts similar to my own. We’d been prepared for almost anything, but we’d grown up in a slick, automated world. Even those in the lowest classes were used to glancing at their watch for time, date, and whatever; to lights turning on when you entered rooms; to having food ready to be ordered when you were hungry with a command and a touch of a wall plate.
A primitive place was one where the weather wasn’t always controlled and buildings might be made of stone or wood, things like that—and a place with grass and trees. But this—not only did I now look like some prehistoric man, but I was living the part.
We all sat down in front of one of the huts and the woman introduced herself to us. “I am Patra,” she told us, trilling the r sound slightly. “Like you, I was a convicted felon sentenced here about five years ago. I won’t reveal what my offenses were, nor my old name—such things are not asked on the Warden worlds, although the information is sometimes freely given. It remains your choice to tell as much or as little about your past as you wish, and to whomever you wish. It is also your choice to use your old name or to choose any new one you like, as I did.”
There were murmurs and nods at that, and I liked the idea myself. Barring a chance meeting with someone who had known the old Cal Tremon, I’d be spared the embarrassing questions and consequent chances of being tripped up somewhere.
“You will stay here a few days,” Patra continued. “For one thing, you are now on a new and very hostile world. I realize that many of you have been on new and hostile worlds before, but never one quite like this one. In the past, you’ve had maps, charts, reference computers, all sorts of mechanical aids—not to mention effective weapons. There is none of that here, so you will have to get your information from me. Furthermore, as you are no doubt aware, the Warden organism invades our bodies and lives within us, and during the first few days, that process can have some unpleasant side effects. I don’t want to alarm you—mostly some dizziness, disorientation, stomach upset, things like that. You won’t be really sick, just a little uncomfortable from time to time. The discomfort passes quickly, and you’ll never even think about it again. And it has some advantages.”
“Yeah, keeps us planeted on this rock,” somebody muttered.
Patra just smiled. “Not exactly, although it keeps us in this solar system. It’s a fact of life, so accept that fact. Don’t even think about escape, beating this system. Not only can’t it be done—and some of the best minds in the galaxy have tried—-but the death it brings is the worst, most horrible sort imaginable.”
She paused to let that sink in, knowing it probably wouldn’t, then continued. “The advantage of the organism is that you’ll never have to worry about even the slightest ailment again. No toothaches, no colds, no infection, nothing. Even pretty large wounds, if not fatal or of an extremely critical nature, will heal quickly, and tissue regeneration is possible. There has never been a need for any doctor on Lilith, nor will there be. In other words, the Warden organism pays for what it takes.”
She went on for a while, detailing some of the basics of the planet that I had already gotten from the briefing; then it was time for food. That took the most getting used to. The cuisine of Lilith seemed to consist of cooked insects of all sorts and lots of weeds, sometimes mixed with a grain of some sort that was a very unappetizing purple in color.
There were a few of my group who just couldn’t manage the food for a while, but of course everybody would come around eventually. For a few it might be really tough going, or prove to be a very effective form of dieting.
Getting used to insect stews and chewy purple bread was going to be tough, I told myself, but I would have to learn to eat it and like it or else. Over the next few days I did manage to adjust to eating the food and to crapping in the bushes, using leaves instead of automatic wipers, and all the rest As I said earlier, we were chosen for our ability to adapt to just about anything—and this was the “just about” the training manuals had implied.
Patra was also right about the side effects of the organism’s invasion. I experienced strong dizziness, some odd aches and pains, and a feeling of itching all over inside—damned unpleasant, but I could live with it. We all had the runs, too, but I suspect that was mostly due to the food, not to the organism.
So far, though, Patra’s orientation lectures had mostly covered things I already knew about, and though they went into greater detail than any I’d had before and were therefore welcome, she hadn’t covered the facts I needed so far. On the fourth very long day—it was hell sleeping in that climate as it was, without the days and nights being so much longer—she finally got around to material of more interest.
“I know a lot of you have been wondering and asking why there are no machines, no spaceport, no modern buildings or conveniences here,” she began. “So far I’ve put you off, simply because this was important enough for me to want you all to be through most of the ill effects of arrival. The reason is easy to explain but damned difficult to accept, but it’s the explanation for everything you’ve seen around here.” She seemed to look at each of us in turn, a half-smile on her face.
“Lilith,” she said, “is alive. No, that doesn’t make sense—but none of the Wardens do. I am going to tell you what is in terms that can only be approximations of what is going on.
“I want you to imagine that every single thing you see—not just the grass and trees, but everything: rocks, the very dirt under your feet—is alive, all cells of a single organism, each of which has its own Warden organism inside it in the same symbiotic relationship as it is establishing in your bodies. That organism likes the world exactly the way it is. It maintains it. Chop a tree down and another grows from its stump in record time. Meanwhile the original starts decaying with equal speed—in a full day it’s started to decompose; within three it’s completely gone, absorbed into the ground. Same for people. When you die you’ll be completely gone to dust in under three days. That’s why our food is what it is. It’s what can be caught, killed, and prepared within a day. You probably have noticed that people arrive with our rations every morning.”