Learning the World

“Why not?” asked Grant. “Apart from the airships and steam engines, that is. Like I said, that kind of technological determinism doesn’t convince me.”

Horrocks looked from one to the other, nonplussed. “All right,” he said. “Let’s put it a different way. We need to be sure they do understand all that before we do anything that might set them at each others’ throats if they don’t. In our own interests, we need to be sure they are not going to come out and attack us in a few decades. I know we could improvise some kind of weapons against them — something like meteor defences, I guess — but we haven’t fought a war for thousands of years and if I’m right and you’re wrong, they’re about to become really good at it. Just like our ancestors were before they went to the Moon.”

Atomic drained her cup. “Putting it that way, maybe you’re right. So what do you propose that we do about it?”

This was the crux. Horrocks nerved himself. “Something you once suggested yourself. Hold back on colonization until we’re sure the aliens can handle it.”

Atomic looked regretful, and Grant thoughtful.

“I did hint at that myself once,” Atomic said. “Read my hate mail sometime.”

“Have a good look at what intraspecies war was like — sometime.”

“I don’t need to or want to. I already have the general idea, thank you.”

Horrocks closed his eyes for a moment. “Perhaps you need more than the general idea,” he said. “I know I did. But even based on the general idea, as you say, do you really think the a

“It’s not so much that,” said Atomic. “It’s that the a

Horrocks was startled at how shocked he felt. He wanted to tell her to wash out her mouth. Not, on reflection, the most tactful thing to tell her.

“That may be putting it a little too strongly,” he said at last.

“Is it?” said Atomic. “The founder generation, yes, they’re our geneparents and careparents and we love them and they love us. But we know very well what they bred us and raised us for. To go out, to conquer the system, while they carry on their doubtless fascinating little intrigues and affairs and deals in this lovely habitat that feels to us like a hot room with too many people in it. We need vacuum on the other side of our faceplates to feel we’re breathing fresh air. And the thing is, that’s exactly what we were bred and raised to feel! If the founders try to stop us, they’re asking for trouble.”

“I know that!” cried Horrocks. People turned and stared. He lowered his voice. “The founders know that too. What we’re — what I’m asking you, is whether you can see a way around that, some way to maybe cha

“I can tell you this,” said Atomic. “And you can tell my caremother and her clique and anybody else you care to: if we don’t get out, our energy and urges are going to be cha

Grant nodded. “You said it, Atomic.”

Atomic stood up. “I think we’re finished here.” Horrocks watched them leave.

The Engineer’s Dream was known as a deep hang, a disreputable venue near the axis of the forward cone, popular with habitat trainers, microlight pilots, maintenance coordinators, and other low-responsibility crew members. Horrocks drifted through the hatch into its hazy air and narrow-spectrum artificial light and toed off for the drinks wall, where he broke off a bulb, crooked his elbow through a loop, and turned to survey the scene. Time of day wasn’t an issue here, the entire circadian rhythm being based on on-shift or off-shift, but the place was in one of its phases where only a score or so of people were in. Good: he wanted that sense of drinking at the wrong hour.

He exchanged nods with a few people hanging in the central mesh, none of whom he fancied talking to, and then noticed Genome Console at the far end on her own. Focused on an inhaler, she didn’t see him so he pinged her. She turned, saw him, waved and rolled to place her feet on the wall. One swift thrust brought her over. A neat somersault docked her in the same loop as himself. She wore something like an opaque black sphere with holes for wrists, ankles and neck, but a sphere that had crinkled and shrunk inward to cling here and there, mostly there. Her fair hair floated wild. “Well, hello,” she said. “Where have you been? The gang all thought you’d gone flatfoot.”

“It was just for a few days,” said Horrocks.

“A few days at a time,” she said. “You’ve been going down there for weeks.”

“Doing business with passengers.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute. Fancy a sniff?” She waved her inhaler. Horrocks checked the cartridge: red clouds and a lightning-flash, an obscure brand name.

“No thanks.” Horrocks swigged a squirt. “But you’re right. I got caught up in something.”

“Ah!” said Genome, her eyes bright from her sniff. “You and that flatfoot girl.” She tilted her head back, sighting him along her nose. “She’s trouble.”

“She is that,” Horrocks said. “How do you know about her, anyway?”

“She’s biologged your little contretemps already.”

It had been hours. “You follow it?”

“I track the feeds. Bad habit I picked up from Grey.”

“Oh,” said Horrocks. For some reason it was a name he didn’t welcome hearing. “How is he, by the way?”

“Perverse,” said Genome. “Like all that Red Sun crowd.”

“Red Sun crowd?” Horrocks had an alarmed moment when he thought she alluded to his dealings with the Red Sun Circle.

“You know, all the people from back there.” She waved over her shoulder. “The old crew hands are as bad as passengers, sometimes.”

“Oh, right. They’ve been so long in the ship it’s like—”

“They have to make life more complicated than it needs to be,” she said.

“You’re right there,” said Horrocks, with more force than he’d meant.

“Ah!” said Genome again. “Her caremother got under your skin, did she?” She gri

Horrocks had to laugh. “What do you think of the substance of it?”

“The argument? Huh.” She took a long sniff and stared into the distance. “I sure don’t want these little flatfoot breeders on the ship for much longer. Or their parents, come to that.”

“Just go ahead as pla

“Yup.”

“What about the aliens?”

“Rock the aliens,” said Genome. “Look, in fifty years they’ll have data colonies and science robots and all that Civil Worlds shower crawling all over them. They might as well get used to us in the meantime. Let it sink in that they’re not — ta-da! — alone in the universe, and they’ll soon sort out their little squabbles.”

“Suppose they have a little squabble with us?”

“So what?” Genome said. “What are they going to send up against us? Kites?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard what I’ve said on that score,” said Horrocks. “I’m more concerned about what fighting them would do to us.”

Genome shrugged. “We’d have plenty of time to prepare. Discuss. Sort out the morality of the thing. It’s not something you can do anything about now.”

Horrocks broke off another drink. “I suppose not,” he said. “I have a nasty feeling I’ve been inveigled into one of these founder intrigues that has nothing whatever to do with the ostensible bone of contention.”

“Yeah,” said Genome. “Probably some speculative ramp at the back of it.” She sighed. “Grey was always doing things like that. Watched the terrestrials market like a crow eyeing a caterpillar, every time he fired off one of his daft rants.”

“Past tense now, is he?”

She shifted in the loop. “As far as I’m concerned, yes.”