Even the Scientists, whose very reason for being was the pursuit of understanding, were not immune from this rivalry for power.
The Scientists were crucial to the Raft’s survival. In such matters as the moving of the Raft, the control of epidemics, the redesign of sections of the Raft itself, their knowledge and structured way of thinking was essential. And without the tradition the Scientists maintained — which explained how the universe worked, how humans could survive in it — the fragile social and engineering web which comprised the Raft would surely disintegrate within a few thousand shifts. It wasn’t its orbit around the Core which kept the Raft aloft, Rees told himself; it was the continuance of human understanding.
So the Scientists had a vital, almost sacred responsibility. But, Rees reflected, it didn’t stop them using their precious knowledge for advantage every bit as unscrupulously as any of Decker’s workmen blocking up a sewer. The Scientists had a statutory obligation to educate every apprentice of supervisory status regardless of Class, and they did so — to a nominal extent. But only Science apprentices, like Rees, were allowed past the bare facts and actually to see the ancient books and instruments…
Knowledge was hoarded. And so only those close to the Scientists had any real understanding of humanity’s origins, even of the nature of the Raft, the Nebula. Listening to chatter in refectories and food machine queues Rees came to understand that most people were more concerned about this shift’s ration size, or the outcome of spurious sporting contests, than the larger issues of racial survival. It was as if the Nebula was eternal, as if the Raft itself was fixed atop a pillar of steel, securely and for all time!
The mass of people was ignorant, driven by fashions, fads and the tongues of orators… even on the Raft. As for the human colonies away from the Raft — the Belt mine and (perhaps) the legendary, lost Boney worlds — there, Rees knew from his own experience, understanding of the human past and the structure of the universe had been reduced to little more than fanciful tales.
Fortunately for the Scientists, most of the other Classes’ apprentices were quite happy with this state of affairs. The Officer cadets in particular sat through their lectures with every expression of disdain, clearly eager to abandon this dry stuff for the quick of life, the exercise of power.
So the Scientists went unchallenged, but Rees wasn’t sure about the wisdom of their policy. The Raft itself, while still comfortable and well-supplied compared to the Belt, was now riven by shortages. Discontent was widespread, and — since the people did not have the knowledge to understand the (more or less) genuine contribution to their welfare made by the more privileged Classes — those Classes were more often than not the target of unfocused resentment.
It was an unstable mixture.
And the enslaving of knowledge had another adverse effect, Rees realized. Turning facts into precious things made them seem sacred, immutable; and so he saw Scientists pore over old printouts and intone litanies of wisdom brought here by the Ship and its Crew, unwilling — or unable — to entertain the idea that there might be facts beyond the ageing pages, even — breathe it quietly — inaccuracies and mistakes!
Despite all his doubts and questions, Rees found the shifts following his acceptance the happiest of his life. As a fully fledged apprentice he was entitled to more than Grye’s grudging picture-book sessions; now he sat in classes with the other apprentices and learned in a structured and consistent way. For hours outside his class time he would pore over his books and photographs — and he would never forget an ageing picture buried in one battered folder, a photograph of the blue rim of the Nebula.
Blue!
The magical color filled his eyes, every bit as clear and cool as he had always imagined.
At first, Rees sat, awkwardly, with apprentices some thousands of shifts younger than himself; but his understanding progressed rapidly, to the grudging admiration of his tutors, and before long he had caught up and was allowed to join the classes of Hollerbach himself.
Hollerbach’s style as a teacher was as vivid and captivating as the man himself. Abandoning yellowing texts and ancient photographs the old Scientist would challenge his charges to think for themselves, adorning the concepts he described with words and gestures.
One shift he had each member of the class build a simple pendulum — a dense metal bob attached to a length of string — and time its oscillation against the burning of a candle. Rees set up his pendulum, limiting the oscillations to a few degrees as Hollerbach instructed, and counted the swings carefully. A few benches along he was vaguely aware of Doav languidly going through the motions of the experiment; whenever Hollerbach’s fierce eye was averted Doav would poke at the swinging bob before him, elaborately bored.
It didn’t take long for the students to establish that the period of the pendulum’s swing depended only on the length of the string — and was independent of the mass of the bob.
This simple fact seemed wonderful to Rees (and that he had found it out for himself made it still more so); he stayed in the little student lab for many hours after the end of the class extending the experiment, probing different mass ranges and larger amplitudes of swing.
The next class was a surprise. Hollerbach entered grandly and eyed the students, bade them pick up the retort stands to which their pendulums were still fixed, and beckoned. Then he turned and marched from the lab.
The students nervously followed, clutching their retorts; Doav rolled his eyes at the tedium of it all.
Hollerbach led them on a respectable hike, out along an avenue beneath the canopy of turning trees. The sky was clear of cloud today and starlight dappled the plates of the deck. Despite his age Hollerbach kept up a good pace, and by the time he paused, under open sky a few yards beyond the edge of the flying forest, Rees suspected that his weren’t the only young legs that ached a little. He looked around curiously, blinking in the direct starlight; since beginning classes he had scarcely had a chance to come out this way, and the apparent tilt of the riveted deck under his feet felt strange.
Solemnly Hollerbach lowered himself to the deck plates and sat cross-legged, then bade his students do the same. He fixed a series of candles to the plates. “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he boomed, “I would like you to repeat your experiments of our last class. Set up your pendulum.”
There were stifled groans around the class, presumably inaudible to Hollerbach. The students began work, and Hollerbach, restless, got up and paced among them. “You are Scientists, remember,” he told them. “You are here to observe, not judge; you are here to measure and understand…”
Rees’s results were… odd. As Hollerbach’s supply of candles burned through he went over his results carefully, repeating and testing.
At last Hollerbach called them to order. “Conclusions, please? Doav?”
Rees heard the cadet’s breathy groan. “No difference,” he said languidly. “Same result curve as last time.”
Rees frowned. That was wrong; the periods he had measured had been greater than yesterday’s — by a small amount, granted, but greater consistently.
The silence gathered. Doav shifted uneasily.
Then Hollerbach let him have it. Rees tried not to grin as the old Scientist tore into the cadet’s sloppy methods, his closed mind, his laziness, his lack of fitness to wear the golden braids. By the end of it Doav’s cheeks burned crimson.