He proved to be right. On both counts.
Chapter 9
Doctor Koresz was the first adult to die, six years after their arrival on Ishtar.
It did not come as a surprise, for he had known for months he was dying.
“I do not know why, really,” he had told them, lying on his pallet in the hut which the doctor shared with Janet and Hector. “I have only been able to scratch the surface, when it comes to understanding life and death on Ishtar. I shouldn’t be dying, of course. I am only forty-two years old, and if I had not been in perfect health the Society would never have approved me for the Magellan. But—as Julius never tires of reminding us—facts are stubborn things. And the fact is that I am dying.”
All of the adults were gathered around, except Adams, who had drawn more and more apart from the colony as time went on. He was the only one of the adults who still lived in the landing boat. All the others had long since moved into the huts which Janet had designed from native vegetation. The children were housed in four large barracks (no, “long houses,” Indira had named them, after the Iroquois).
Except for Adams, the adults lived in two separate huts: Indira and Julius in one, the doctor and Janet and Hector in the other. The ménage à trois into which Hector, Koresz and Janet had happily settled, within a few months after the crash, was a logical enough arrangement under the circumstances. And sexual mores on Earth in the 22nd century were characterized by considerable latitude and tolerance.
Julius immediately named their hut “Sodom and Gomorrah.” And he demonstratively refused to come near it, fearing, or so he claimed, the wrath of God.
“You don’t even believe in God!” Indira had once protested.
Julius chewed his lip. “No, I don’t. But you never know. And if He does exist, He has two outstanding characteristics. Judging, at least, from the Old Testament.”
“Which are?”
“He’s the most hot-tempered, narrow-minded, mean-spirited, intolerant, anal-compulsive, bigoted redneck who ever lived. And, what’s more to the point, he’s a lousy shot.”
“It’s true!” he insisted, in the face of Indira’s laughter. “Read the Book yourself. Somebody pisses Him off, does He nail ’em right between the eyes like Buffalo Bill? Hell, no! He drowns everything. Or He blasts whole cities, or drops seven lean years on entire nations. Indiscriminate, that’s what He is. The Sawed-off Shotgun In The Sky. So I ain’t getting anywhere near that den of iniquity.”
And he hadn’t, until he realized that Koresz was really dying.
“But why?” demanded Janet. She wiped away tears. “If it’s a disease, maybe you can find a cure. You’ve done miracles, Vladimir! Not just with us, with the owoc too.”
Koresz shook his head weakly.
“It is not a disease, Janet. At least, not in the sense that you are using the term. It is—call it massive systemic shock.”
“Explain,” said Julius softly.
“I cannot, Julius. Not clearly. There is still an enormous amount we do not understand about life. Organisms are adapted by evolution to a particular environment. Some are more finicky about it than others, but any organism only has a certain tolerance range. Humans do quite well, in that regard, compared to most animals. But we have long known that totally new environments place a tremendous stress on organisms. In unforeseen ways, often. Did you ever read any of those old science fiction classics, written before humanity actually got into space?”
Julius shook his head.
“It is fascinating, really. The writers all thought that weightlessness would improve human health. Seemed like a logical idea at the time, I suppose. Gravity does wear our bodies down. But we are adapted to gravity. And when we finally got into space, we discovered that we cannot survive weightlessness. Not for really extended periods of time. Bone loss; muscle atrophy; eventually, Kabakov’s syndrome and death.”
He levered himself to a semi-erect position.
“But we can survive weightlessness for quite some time before we succumb. And that, I think, is a good analogy to what is happening to me. My body lasted for years, but it is finally just giving up.”