To avoid such difficulties, the generation ships of Tau Ceti have developed a technique for keeping younger generations mindful of the first generation’s intentions: they paint a line down the middle of the ship, thus dividing the ship’s living areas into “Port-half” and “Starboard-half.” They then organize contests in which Port children compete with Starboard children for rote memorization of important knowledge (such as how to run the ship, how to survive on an alien planet, and how to construct farms, roads, etc.).
Children may not care about pleasing their parents, but they’ll do anything to defeat a rival. Therefore, they throw themselves into the job of learning whatever is required. They organize themselves into study groups, and use peer pressure on their fellows to make sure everyone is working hard. Each formal competition brings together both sides in keenly fought challenges to remember exactly what they’re supposed to.
Within three generations, violence usually breaks out. Three generations more, and the two halves have calcified into religious orthodoxies that furiously oppose each other on tiny points of received doctrine. By the time the ship actually reaches its destination, the Port and Starboard communities are eager to land and establish themselves so they can wage holy war.
Admittedly, this isn’t a perfect solution to preserving commitment and knowledge down through the generations. However, it has ample historic precedent.
The business executives of Cappa-Jella leave nothing to chance when planning for retirement. Not only do they set aside ample investments to provide for their financial needs, but they cover their spiritual needs too.
As soon as they can afford it, they clone themselves and hire the clone to be their proxy on the path of enlightenment. Such clones are paid to spend their days reading scripture, studying koans, and practicing meditation under skilled masters. By the time the original Cappa-Jellan is ready to retire, the clone is expected to have reached nirvana, or at the very least, to be able to achieve satori with dependable regularity. The clone’s brain patterns are then uploaded to the original business person, thereby ensuring a post-retirement state of bliss.
The one drawback to this scheme is that many of the clones abandon their cloisters after a year or two. Most go into business instead; they say the business world has less pressure.
Marco Polo gazes at the night’s starry blackness as Kublai Khan falls silent. After a time, he says, “In my travels, I, too, have spoken with Shaolin monks… and a true follower of Buddha would never believe in purchasing bliss, inciting holy wars, and all the other things you describe. Buddhists reject earthly strivings as ‘unhelpful practice.’ Either this monk of yours failed to comprehend the Buddha’s teaching, or he deliberately gave examples of wrong understanding, wrong intention, and so on.”
“Perhaps my monk was mistaken,” Kublai Khan says. “After all, there must have been some reason he left the monastery and joined my guard. He might have been expelled from Shaolin for his incorrect views. Or perhaps…”
The emperor’s voice trails off. Marco Polo asks, Perhaps what?”
“Perhaps the monk realized he was talking to an emperor. There’s little point in telling an emperor what he doesn’t want to hear… especially if your message is about the unhelpfulness of earthly strivings.” Kublai Khan stares at the dark heavens. “In all the futures to come, around every star in the sky, there will be emperors. The job never goes out of date, though it poses under a thousand different names. And not one of those emperors will ever have the luxury to dream of enlightenment.”
“And what,” asks Polo, “if enlightenment is not a luxury but a necessity?”
“Then the emperor befriends an explorer-or perhaps a Shaolin monk—and while the emperor does what an emperor must, the friend is free to follow different paths… eightfold or otherwise.” Kublai Khan gives a sad smile. “Consider it another perennial job in all those futures to come, around every star in the sky: the man who can be what an emperor can’t. The unfettered man who visits the royal court from time to time and tells the emperor what he’s missing.” Kublai Khan stares at the darkness overhead. “Where will you go for your next journey, Marco? Across the far ocean? To the jungles or the ice caps? Perhaps even to the stars?”
Polo says, “Where would you like me to go, great emperor?”
Kublai Khan sighs. “I leave that decision to you. Just come back and tell me stories…”
James Alan Gardner lives in Kitchener, Ontario, with his adoring wife, Linda Carson, and a rabbit who is confused but sincere. He got his master’s degree in applied mathematics (with a thesis on black holes) and then immediately gave up academics for writing. He has published six science fiction novels, the latest of which is Trapped. He has won the Aurora Award twice, and has been a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula awards.
Porter’s Progress
by Isaac Szpindel
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If you’re tired of being a cog in the wheel, if you want to interact with a variety of people in a first-class environment, Pullman Porter is the career choice for you!
One-way travel to Venus Orbit Spacecity provided for qualified applicants.
Peter Dripps slides the upper torso of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit over Ms porter’s uniform for the last time. Immediately, a prickly flow of inner-garment fluid circulates a clammy dampness all around, like he’s wet himself. A fitting fate, Peter minks, a fitting shroud for a Pullman Porter. To die in uniform, by The Book. Peter wants to believe this. Wants to believe that duty might yet make a hero of him, that it has done more than condemn him to an EMU insulated death.
From behind, Kianga clamps the Portable Life-Support System onto the hard-shell back of the upper torso. She hides from Peter, out of sight in the cramped quarters of the air lock. Embarrassed, likely, by her recent loss of control.
For Peter, there is only Kianga and the air lock door now. Both monolithic, both impassive, but only for the moment. Soon one will yield. One will deliver him to space. Peter has known all materials, polymer, steel, even aluminum, to bend in their way, but he has never known Kianga to do so until now.
“Helmet’s coming down,” Kianga says, as if she’d be saying it again.
The helmet assembly lowers over Peter’s head and secures onto its locking ring. One hundred percent oxygen fills his lungs. It almost gives him the courage he will need. For himself, for the train.
“You’re good to go,” Kianga shouts through the back of Peter’s helmet.
A vibration, then a shudder through Peter’s boots tell him that the inner air lock door has shut behind him. No goodbye, no further sentiment from Kianga for damaged freight, human or otherwise. Her recent behavior, a momentary anomaly, already forgotten.
Harder than rail spur, that Kianga, Peter thinks. What it takes to make it as an engineer on the rails. That and Booking it, all one hundred and sixty-three Brown’s rules. The only Engineer within the Venus Orbit Spacecity lines, or anywhere else for that matter, never to lose a Brownie. Always playing by the rules, by The Book.