“I don’t know,” I said.
“Would you agree that it isn’t a good policy?”
“I suppose.”
“Well, it’s my personal opinion that saying the Colons stink is simply a self-justifying myth invented to make us feel morally superior and absolutely in the right. Your statement is likely to keep me from listening to any valid arguments that you might actually have. That certainly wouldn’t do you any good.”
Jimmy had been following the argument. He said, “How about this? It’s all right to dislike people for poor reasons, but not to call them names. You don’t have to justify your dislikes, but you have to justify your contentions.”
“That’s a little oversimplified,” Mr. Mbele said.
For the moment I was off the hook, and since I was struck by a thought, I brought it forward. “What about the people whom you ought to like — only you don’t? And the people you ought not to like that you do?”
“And what does all that mean?” Jimmy asked.
“Well, say you and I agree on everything, and I respect you, and you never do me any harm — like backbiting all the time for no good reason — and yet I can’t stand you. Or say there were somebody I ought to dislike — a total rat, somebody who’ll do anything if he sees advantage in it — and I like him. Can you separate liking from what a person does?”
Mr. Mbele smiled, as though the course of the conversation amused him. “Well, do you separate them?”
“I suppose I do,” I said.
“Jimmy?”
Jimmy didn’t say anything for a minute while he decided whether he did or whether he didn’t. I already knew the answer, having just worked it out myself. Everybody does, or there wouldn’t be charming sociallyaccepted bastards in the world.
Jimmy said, “I suppose I do, too.”
I said, “What I think I mean was should you separate them?”
“Isn’t it more to the point to ask whether it makes any difference if you do or not?”
“You mean, if you can’t help it anyway?”
“No,” Mr. Mbele said. “I meant do your emotions make a difference in your judgment of people that you like or dislike?”
Jimmy said, “Alicia MacReady? Everybody likes her, they say. Will that make any difference in what the Assembly decides?”
Alicia MacReady was the woman who was carrying an illegal baby. The question of what to do in the case had come up before the Council, but it hadn’t stayed there. She had apparently thought that she would get more lenient treatment if the Ship’s Assembly were to make the judgment, so before the Council could decide, she had opted to take the matter out of their hands. The Council had agreed, as in difficult or important cases they were likely to.
The Ship’s Assembly was a meeting of all the adults in the Ship, coming together in the amphitheater on Second Level, and voting. Since she was a popular person — I’d heard this only; until this had come up I had never heard of her or met her — the MacReady woman wanted to face the Assembly, hoping her friendships would count for more than they would in Council.
“That’s a good example,” Mr. Mbele said. “I don’t know if it will make a difference. I would suggest that since you can’t attend, you watch what goes on on your video. Then perhaps we can discuss the decision next time. This is just part of a larger problem, however: what constitutes proper conduct? That is, ethics. This is something an ordinologist” — a nod to Jimmy — “or a synthesist” — a nod toward me — “should be thoroughly familiar with. I’ll give you titles to start with. Take your time with them, and when you’re ready to talk, let me know.”
So he started us reading in ethics. He went to his book shelves and called off titles and authors for us to copy: Epicureans and Utilitarians; Stoics; Power Philosophers, both sophisticated and unsophisticated; and Humanists of several stripes. All these not to mention various religious ethical systems. If I’d known all this was to come out of my one simple, honestly prejudiced remark, I would never have opened my mouth. Maybe there is a lesson in that, but if there is, I’ve never learned it; I still have an unbecoming tendency to open my mouth and get myself in trouble.
I saw Dr. Jerome on Wednesday, June 1. I’d seen him once or twice a year ever since I could remember. He was of middle height, inclined to be portly, and like most doctors wore a beard. His was black. I’d asked him about it when I was much younger and he’d said, “It’s either to give our patients confidence or to give ourselves confidence. I’m not sure which.”
As he examined me, he talked as he always did, a constant flow of commentary directed half at me and half at himself, all given in an even, low-pitched voice. Its effect, and perhaps its intention, was to give reassurance in the same way that a horseman soothes a skittish colt with his voice. It was part of Dr. Jerome’s professional manner.
“Good enough, good enough. Sound. Good shape. Breathe in. Now, out. Good. Hmm-hum. Yes. Good enough.”
There’s always the question of how much you can believe of what a doctor says — he has one of those ethical problems in how much he can tell you — but I had no reason not to believe Dr. Jerome when he told me I was in perfectly sound shape. I was due for no treatments of any kind before starting Survival Class. I was in first-class condition.
“It’s always good to see you, Mia,” he said. “I wish everybody were in as good health. I might have a little more spare time.”
He said one other thing. When he took my height and weight, he said, “You’ve gained three inches since the last time you were here. That’s very good.”
Three inches. I wasn’t sure whether it was Daddy’s doing or nature, but I wasn’t displeased to hear it.
8
Jimmy and I got off the shuttle at Entry Gate 5 on the Third Level. This was supposedly where our group was to meet at two o’clock. We were about ten minutes early. The shuttle door slid open and we left the car. When we were clear, the car flicked away, responding to a call from another level, much like an elevator. On the cross-level line, a few feet away, there were several cars just sitting and waiting to be called.
The door leading out of the shuttle room was double, with both sides standing open. Above it a sign read: ENTRY GATE 5, THIRD LEVEL: PARK. Through the open door I could see light, grass, dirt and a number of kids about my age, all beyond the gate.
“There they are,” Jimmy said.
The Third Level is divided into three distinct and separate types of areas. First there are the areas under cultivation, producing food, oxygen, and fodder for the cattle we raise. Beef is our only on-the-hoof meat, our other meats coming from cultures raised in vats, also here on the Third Level. The second type of area is park. Here there are trees, a lake, flowers, grassland, picnic areas, room to walk, room to ride. This is what you might wish the planets were like. The last type of area is the wilds, which is much like the parks but more dangerous. As the maps might have it, here there are wilde beastes. The terrain is more sudden and the vegetation is left to find its own way. It’s designed for hunting, for chance-taking, and for training not-quite-adults. I’d never been in the wilds up to this time, only in the ag and park areas.
“Come on, then,” I said.
We went through the doors, then through what amounted to a short tunnel, perhaps ten feet long. The transparent gate dilated and we went through. Outside there were trees and stables, a corral among the trees, and a building that had a wall from about two feet off the ground to about seven feet, and about three feet higher an open-gabled roof. This held lockers and showers.
It was only here on the Third Level that you could appreciate the size of the Ship. Everywhere else there were walls at every hand, but here your view was all but unimpeded. It was fully miles to the nearest point where roof above and ground below met ship-side. The roof was three hundred feet up and it took a sharp eye to pick out sprinklers and such as individual features.