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the PRU ... revolutionaries."
COLONY " 237
He was going to say ' 'terrorists,''Bahjat knew. She nodded. She trusted this old man up to a point.
When David awoke he was still in the shuttle, strapped into his seat. His head thundered with pain. The fat Japanese
was gone from the next seat. All the passengers were gone. No one was in the shuttle, except for a soldier in an olive
drab uniform slouching up at the front hatch, by the door to the cockpit.
We've landed,David thought through the throbbing in his head.But. ..
Then it hit him.I'm on Earth! Everything else fled from his thoughts.
He tried to get up, but the seat harness cut into his shoulders. Impatiently, he unsnapped it and got to his feet. His
head roared and his legs felt watery. For a moment he leaned against the seat in front of him. The guard eyed him and
hooked a thumb around the butt of the bolstered gun at his hip.
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 David thought dimly that he had taken quite a dose of gas to produce this strong a headache. After several deep
breaths he thought about the zen masters and yogis who could make pain disappear through an effort of will. He
concentrated on dissolving the pain, but that only made his head feel worse.It doesn 't work without the computer
helping you, he realized.
He stepped out into the empty aisle and headed for the open hatch. The air smeiled strange, and there were odd
buzzing noises coming from outside.Or is it inside my head?
''Alto!'' snapped the guard. ''Se siente!''
David did not understand Spanish. He clicked his communicator to get a translation from the nearest computer. But
there was no response. He tried again.
Nothing.
There's no computer here!David was shocked to think that human beings could live anywhere without at least a
terminal that connected to a time-shared computer somewhere within range of an implanted communicator.
The thought staggered him. All his life he had been able
BEN BOVA " 238
to use Island One's intricate network of interlinked computers as an extra memory, an immediate
encyclopedia of information that was available to him, inside his head, with the speed of light. Even on the
Moon he could tap into the computers and the tiny simpleminded electronic "brains" of the navigation
satellites. But here on Earth he was blanked out. It was like suddenly becoming blind, or having all the
libraries of the world closed to you. It was like suffering an amputation, a lobotomy.
"Se siente!"the guard repeated, gesturing with his left hand while his right gripped the pistol in its holster.
Numbly, David slumped into the nearest seat. The guard shouted to somebody outside the hatch, then
returned his gaze to David. For the first time, David realized it must be night out there; the ship's
overhead light panels were glowing and the slim slice of outdoors he could see through the open hatch
was dark.
He tried to lean back and sleep, but his headache pounded away at him.I finally get to Earth, he
groused,and they won't let me see anything.
He only realized he had dozed off when a touch on his shoulder startled him awake. The girl was
standing over him, the one who had knocked him out.
"You have returned to the living," she said in International English. A slight smile played along her lips.
David started to nod, but the headache made him wince.
"You are in pain?" she asked.
"Hell, yes," he said. "Thanks to you."
She looked concerned. "You shouldn't have tried to resist. I warned you to stay seated."
"I've never been hijacked before."
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 "Come," she said, extending her hand to him. "We will find something for your headache."
He took her hand and got up from the seat. She led him past the guard and they walked down the metal
stairs that extended from the hatch to the ground.
David stopped at me bottom of the stairs and looked around. The sky was a soft blue-black. It glowed.
The stars twinkled gently, not the harsh, unblinking pinpoints of Island One. There were fewer of them,
but they formed the
COLONY " 239
shapes he knew from books: die Hunter, the Ship, the Southern Cross. He even saw the soft nebulosity
of Magellan's Clouds.
All around him stretched open fields. It was too dark to see if they were cultivated or not. A house
bulked darkly against the gentle night sky, a few of its windows bright with light.
But it was the sounds and the smells that hit David hardest. Crickets chirruping. The scent of warm earth
and grass and living things. A breeze touched his face, cool and strangely fluctuating, dying away for a
moment and then returning stronger than before.
"It's still untamed," he said aloud. "It's not controlled at all! It never will be tamed, not completely!"
Bahjat tugged at his arm. "Come up to the hacienda. They have aspirin there."
"No ..." David took a few steps away from the spacecraft, feeling the soil against his boots. "No, I want
to see this. I want to watch the Sun come up."
She laughed. "That won't be for hours."
"I don't care."
In the starlight he could barely make out the expression on her face. But her voice sounded stern,
suspicious. "It would be foolish to try to run away. There are no other buildings for a hundred kilometers
or more."
"Where's the Moon?" David asked, turning around in a complete circle.
"It rises in an hour or so."
"Oh. And that bright one over there," he said and pointed, "that must be Island One."
She studied him.Either he is in'shock from the gas, or he's trying to lull me into letting him escape.
"You can't stay out here all night," she said. "The others are..."
"Why not?" he asked simply.
"The others are all inside the hacienda."
"So? They've all been on Earth before. I haven't. It's beautiful!"
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 "You were born in Selene?" she asked.
David shook his head. The headache was already easing.
BEN BOVA " 240
"Island One. I've spent my whole life in Island One until a few weeks ago."
"You really must come inside," she insisted.
"I don't want to. I've spent my wholelife inside!"
Bahjat had no weapons with her.He is much bigger than I, and in good shape. She considered the odds for a moment,
then shrugged to herself. /can always scream for the guards. And there is no place for him to run to. He can't very well
hide on this empty plain.
"Very well," she said. "Come with me to the house for a few seconds, and then we can walk out here and watch the
Moon rise/"
It happened much more slowly than on Island One, of course. David and Bahjat sat on the sweet-smelling grass and
watched the Moon's nearly imperceptible rising. He was too lost in the newness of Earth to speak. But Bahjat found
herself talking endlessly, as if she had to justify herself, apologize to him, explain it all.
"... it may be hard, dangerous, even cruel. But we can't let the World Government dictate to us. We must have
freedom!"
"But the World Government isn't a dictatorship," he answered, his eyes still on the slowly rising Moon.It really does
look like a face! I'll be damned!
"They take taxes from us and give us nothing in return," Bahjat said. "They turn everything into a gray sameness.
Why should Arabs dress like Europeans, who dress like Americans, who dress like Chinese?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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