Sea Legs by Frank Quattrocchi (ebook reader with highlighter .TXT) 📖

left the invisible path of the older man to avoid an exhaustingly steep rise.

"Follow me exactly," warned Cocteau in a sharp voice. "There is only one relatively safe path through here."

"They'll see us against the sky!"

"It cannot be helped."

But there was no indication that they were followed. They pushed onward, scurrying over heaps of weathered plaster and brick. The old man seemed to avoid with great care places where metal girders were visible.

The exertion together with walking directly into the setting sun made Craig begin to feel the old nausea return. He resisted it for a time, but it would not be repressed, particularly as he strove to maintain his balance on difficult climbs. Once he stumbled on a splintered building stone and fell. It was a long minute before he could regain his feet and mutter a feeble, "Sorry."

"We must push on, Mr. Craig," was Cocteau's only comment.

"It's safe here for a minute, isn't it?" Craig panted, dizzy and breathless.

"There is no safe place here, Mr. Craig."

They continued their winding way through the growing darkness. For Craig it became a nightmare of stumbling over the endless piles of sharp stones. His mind spun sickeningly and he retched as he half ran along the path Cocteau set for them.

"Please, mister," breathed the voice of Phil behind him. "It isn't so far now."

Doggedness carried Craig onward long after awareness left him.

He became conscious suddenly, as though by an injection of stimulant. He found himself surrounded by a number of figures, including Cocteau and a white garbed man, evidently a doctor.

"You are quite safe now, Mr. Craig," said Cocteau warmly. "Welcome to the City of We."

"Where are we?"

"Deep in the old city, in a place where the radioactivity is negligible," the man answered as the doctor took his pulse. "This is Dr. Grant and these others are members of the Liberty party."

"Liberty!"

"You've heard of it?"

"Yeah, you're pretty unpopular, aren't you?"

"Unpopular? Let us say that all of Terran officialdom is dedicated to exterminating us."

"The committee on something-or-other asked me about my attitudes toward the Liberty party," said Craig, rising to a sitting position on the cot.

"And at the time you had a lack of attitude, which most likely was unacceptable to them," supplied Cocteau, smiling. "Well, you may be interested to know that you are considered one of us by most of Terra just now."

"What?"

"That is correct," said another of the group. "It seems you were in a bar in—ah—in a somewhat less than fully conscious state...."

"But I didn't know anything about the Liberty party."

"No, nor is it alleged that you actually mentioned the party in so many words," continued the white-haired man, smiling. "But it seems that you did make certain statements in the presence of certain persons that did indicate a definite predilection...."

"That's crazy," said Craig angrily.

"Of course," Cocteau agreed.

"Furthermore," the other man said, "you are charged with wilful abandonment of duty and 'acts indicative of your desire to shun the best utilization of your talents in behalf of the state of Terra.'"

"In other words," explained Cocteau, "you applied for a job on a private space freighter. Without permission to do so."

Craig was silent. He lay back down on the cot and tried to absorb the data he had just received.

"So I'm accused of belonging to something I don't know anything about?"

"Then I'll tell you briefly about us. You have a right to know the magnitude of the crime with which you are charged." Cocteau took a seat by Craig's cot. The others also found chairs.

"But first a brief bit of history—a history that you have never heard before. Not your fault. It is not allowed to penetrate Terra's atmosphere."

"I don't know much about Terra," Craig interjected. "I'm just finding out how much I don't know."

"God, I wish the rest of the Universe could find out with you!" said one of the group.

"Yes, the history of Terra is almost lost now. That is, the part of it that followed the Great Wars of seventy-five years ago. You know of those wars; you have just walked through one of the physical results of them. No nation or alliance of nations can be said to have won them, but the wars had a most profound effect upon Terra. More than anything else, they made men reach to the stars, if only to escape the deadly conflicts of Terra.

"Ideological issues were involved, naturally, but the underlying cause of the Great Wars was the struggle for power. The world was disunited. Peoples were divided from peoples by an almost inconceivable number of unimportant distinctions. These were ethnical, national, racial, cultural—name any brand of prejudice and you'll find it existed then.

"Incredibly enough, the destructiveness of the Great Wars accomplished a kind of unity. Gone were the once proud aggressive nations. Gone into oblivion. Gone, too, were the systems of economics and sociology of which men were once so sure. There was a kind of 'plague-on-both-your-houses' attitude among the peoples of the world. There was a large measure of anarchy following the Great Wars. Not a violent, active anarchy of hate and terror, but of apathy and weariness. Apathy at the outcome of false conflicts, and weariness of the self-defeating strife of man against man.

"At first men produced by the full extent of their labors barely enough on which to survive. Only gradually did they regain their ability to produce surpluses once more. Of course, surpluses mean exchanges—trade. And trade requires order and system.

"The first ten years following the Great Wars was a period of gradualism in all things. Peoples united in small groups. There were no political or racial divisions. The units were built upon functional lines. They were natural and free. Above all, they were cooperative.

"It was not communism. Men knew all too well the mental and physical slavery of that brutally rigid system. It was not rugged individualism either. Rugged individuals during this period either starved or were driven out by the starving.

"This natural, cooperative unity spread and became more complex. There came into being natural associations of units. Not exclusive but inclusive associations that linked all who would join and could produce surpluses. Productivity increased thereby. Men were intelligent enough to avoid many of the old abuses.

"Ways were found to harness the productivity of each man and woman. Genuine efforts were made to avoid misfits, to make those who produced fit. It was realized, Mr. Craig, that the unhappy man will infect others with his misery, and the trouble he will cause is much more difficult to undo than to prevent in the first place.

"There were, of course, mistakes, false starts. But the new-found system of world-wide unity proved flexible. It was multiple-based. To a very large degree, all men fitted into it logically and naturally. It was the first truly 'grass-roots' economic and social system in the history of man. And it was a great tribute to his ability to work out his destiny, particularly since it came after a tragedy that was so enormous and devastating.

"The list of its successes is incredible. For in a decade the age-old problem of poverty seemed to have disappeared. There were no significant outbreaks of disorder and lawlessness—indeed, there was comparatively little need for a written law. The principle of mutuality and cooperation was too strongly conditioned into the people.

"Scientifically, the first half of the new century, a scant twenty-five years after the last bomb was dropped, was the greatest in man's history. Man reached the stars. He began to know the molecule, the atom, the electron. He pushed the frontier of his knowledge deep into both microcosm and macrocosm.

"But a fatal flaw had long before developed in the structure, wonderful as it was. It was an age-old flaw. It was one that was disguised by the very nature of the new system. When it was recognized, that flaw had so weakened the system that its spread was all but inevitable. It is a flaw that will always plague man to a certain extent, but one that must keep us eternally vigilant.

"It is this: the greatest human good comes not in how well you learn to control man and keep him from harming himself. What determines it is how completely you learn to free him.

"Conversely, the law provides that no control system, however devised, will succeed in bringing happiness and security to man to any greater extent than it permits the fullest expression of his nature.

"Man is inherently good. He will always choose a moral path when free to do so. He strives for justice and truth both as an individual and in mass.

"Mr. Craig, democracy is man's greatest a priori. Yet based upon a law of restraint, it cannot escape the hopeless contradiction that leads to its own destruction. Man can democratically do the irrational and the insane. He can democratically limit and coerce the absolute highest nature of himself. Bad laws are forever passed to achieve good ends. But each new law produces new criminals while the cause of the new crime remains unsolved.

"Ergo, the world you have just seen. Ergo, the Liberty party. Mr. Craig, our world is ruled by a vast and horrible bureaucracy whose terrible weapon is conformity. You would find few laws even today written in books. Our assemblies pass few statutes. They determine dogma instead. They 'resolve' and 'move.' They fix a new 'position,' define a 'stand.' Our equivalent of judge and attorney is no student of law. He is a kind of moralist. He is sensitive to the 'trend' and appreciative of the 'proper.'

"Terra fits uncomfortably in the Intergalactic System. Like many of the undemocratic systems of the dark past, the Terran state must expand. It is based upon a self-limiting philosophy unless it can spread fast enough. You are charged with being 'unTerran,' Mr. Craig. A system that forever seeks 'unTerrans' must inevitably exile or kill itself!"

It had been a long speech. Craig had listened in awe, for it was a completely new story to him.

"And you propose to destroy this bureaucracy?" he said.

"In so far as it is a philosophical entity, yes."

"And you say I am one of you now?"

"You are considered one of us. Your employer and his secretary are also suspected."

"But I'm entitled to a trial, or at least a hearing."

"Not now, Mr. Craig. It would do you little good, anyway. The 'position' of the Assembly on subversion is that it 'rightly behooves every loyal Terran so to conduct his behavior that a suspicion of membership in the Liberty party is unthinkable.'"

Craig found himself regretting every minute of his stay on Terra. Old Brockman had been right—it was no place for a spaceman. Now it was probably too late. No Terran space freighter would accept him and Intergalactic could not. There was not even a way for him to recover his service records.

"Will you join us, Mr. Craig?" asked one of the men. "We can use your skills, particularly your knowledge of space."

"Look, how do I know you aren't a bunch of traitors? Maybe all this you've told me is true. I've seen plenty of that bureaucracy and there seems to be damned little freedom of action left on Terra. But how do I know you can do any better when you get in power?"

"Liberty will never be 'in power,' Mr. Craig," Cocteau said quietly. "Liberty will attempt to reach the minds of the people with our message of hope, of freedom in true democracy."

Another of the group joined Cocteau. "We are now hunted as criminals. We have only this small stronghold in the old city."

"We shall attempt only to gain entry to the minds of the people," said Cocteau. "Gain entry to tell them how they live, for most of them have had no contact with any other kind of life."

"It would mean killing a few people," Craig pointed out.

"One of the basic principles of Liberty is the inherent goodness of every man," Cocteau repeated. "We have never taken a life, even in self-defense. We shall never take one. Nor will it ever be necessary for a member of the Liberty party to hold public office, to own a weapon, to coerce a man in any physical way."

"But you will coerce them with ideas. Is that what you have in mind?" Craig protested.

"If a point of view, a promise, a goal is coercion, then the answer to your question is yes. But ideas are not dangerous when a man is free to argue and act against them."

"Look here, Cocteau," Craig said earnestly, "all you say may be true. I believe it is. But what can I do? I'm a spaceman, or at best an apprentice import clerk. I don't know anything about this sort of work."

"Come here a moment," invited a member of the group.

Through the window indicated by the man, Craig saw an incredible sight. The entire scene seemed to be on the