Stephen Marlowe

“ Where are the stars? Where are they, Chuls, if it did not change?"
"The stars come out at night."
"So there is a change from day to night!"
"I didn't say that. The stars simply shine at night. Why should they shine during the day when the world wants them to shine only at night?"
"Once they shone all the time."
"Naturally," said Crifer, becoming interested. "They are variable."
Rikud regretted that he never had had the chance to read that book on astronomy. He hadn't been reading too much lately. The voice of the reading machine had begun to bore him. ”

“ Chuls stripped himself and selected the space under a vacant tube. Rikud, for his part, wanted to get back to the viewport and watch the one new bright star. He had the distinct notion it was growing larger every moment. He turned to go, but the door clicked shut and a metallic voice said. "Fifteen minutes under the tubes, please."
Rikud muttered to himself and undressed. The world had begun to annoy him. Now why shouldn't a man be permitted to do what he wanted, when he wanted to do it? ”

“ That was a bad thing you did, Rikud."
"It was not bad. The world has moved through the blackness and the stars and now we should go outside to live in the big garden there beyond the viewport."
"That's ridiculous," Chuls said.
Even Crifer now was angry at Rikud. "He broke the buzzer and no one can eat. I hate Rikud, I think."
There was a lot of noise in the darkness, and someone else said, "I hate Rikud." Then everyone was saying it.
Rikud was sad. Soon he would die, because no one would go outside with him and he could not go outside alone. In five more years he would have had a woman, too. ”

“ Rikud said, sitting up now, "the stars in the viewport are changing."
"Changing?" Crifer questioned the fuzzy concept as much as he questioned what it might mean in this particular case.
"Yes, there are less of them, and one is bigger and brighter than the others."
"Astronomy says some stars are variable," Crifer offered, but Rikud knew his lame-footed companion understood the word no better than he did.
Over on Rikud's right, Chuls began to dress. "Variability," he told them, "is a contradictory term. Nothing is variable. It can't be." ”

“ Perhaps they ate plants. Once, in the garden, Rikud had broken off a frond and tasted it. It had been bitter, but not unpleasant. Maybe the plants in the viewport would even be better.
"We will not be hungry if we go outside," he said. "We can eat there."
"We can eat if the buzzer sounds, but it is broken," Chuls said dully.
Crifer shrilled, "Maybe it is only variable and will buzz again."
"No," Rikud assured him. "It won't."
"Then you broke it and I hate you," said Crifer. "We should break you, too, to show you how it is to be broken."
"We must go outside—through the viewport." ”

“ Once, here in this same ray room, he had had the impulse to hurl himself head-first against the wall, just to see what would happen. But something soft had cushioned the impact—something which had come into being just for the moment and then abruptly passed into non-being again, something which was as impalpable as air. ”

“ Almost no one read any more, and the library was heavy with the smell of dust. Reading represented initiative on the part of Crifer; it meant that, in the two unoccupied hours before sleep, he went to the library and listened to the reading machine. Everyone else simply sat about and talked. That was the custom. Everyone did it.
But if he wasn't reading himself, Rikud usually went to sleep. All the people ever talked about was what they had done during the day, and it was always the same.
"Yes," said Crifer. "I found a book about the stars. They're also called astronomy, I think." ”

“ Much of this Rikud could not understand, but he knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with the people against the elders, and it said the people had won.
Now in the health room, Rikud felt a warmth in the rays. Grudgingly, he had to admit to himself that it was not unpleasant. ”

“ If he destroyed the wheels and the cogs and the gears, would the buzzer stop? It probably would, because, as Rikud saw it, he was clearly an "unauthorized person." He had heard the voice again upon entering the room.
He found a metal rod, bright and shiny, three feet long and half as wide as his arm. He tugged at it and it came loose from the wires that held it in place. He hefted it carefully for a moment, and then he swung the bar into the mass of metal. Each time he heard a grinding, crashing sound. ”

“ Of stars there were few, and of the blackness, almost nothing. Gone, too, was the burning globe. Something loomed there in the port, so huge that it spread out over almost the entire surface. Something big and round, all grays and greens and browns, and something for which Rikud had no name. ”