No, not the same at all. A subtle color difference, and a great difference in texture. It was a different world transplanted here, in miniature. A fragment. A museum-piece that gave Frank an odd nostalgic feeling as the wagon neared it.
The Earth family had grown themselves shrubs and trees. A maple and a poplar tree waved bravely inside the Refuge. They had, from the materials available, constructed a model of a Terran house, a small two-bedroom residence. White stucco walls. A red-tile roof. Windows, with curtains behind them. A gravel path. A garage (with nothing inside it but an elaborate workbench). Roses, petunias, and a few fuschias. The cuttings and seeds had all been brought on the original—and only—trip from Earth: Cussick had anticipated what lay ahead. In the back was a thriving vegetable garden. And the man had even thought to bring four chickens, a cow and a bull, three pigs, a pair of dogs, a pair of domestic cats, and a flock of assorted birds.
The Refuge was literally jammed with Terran flora and fauna. The woman, Nina, had painted an artificial backdrop that was startlingly convincing. Rolling brownish hills, with a distant blue ocean. The woman was quite talented along artistic lines; she had supervised the development of the creation with a trained and critical eye. Playing at the edge of the Refuge, where the backdrop began, was their four-year-old son Jack. He was busily assembling a sand castle at the edge or a small synthetic lake in which lapped painstakingly distilled water.
“I feel sorry for them,” Syd said abruptly.
“You do? Why?”
“Because it’s awful. You remember… Living like that, shut up in a little glass box.”
“Someday they’ll be able to go back,” Frank reminded her. “One of these days the Society of the Prince of Man—or whatever the new hagiocracy is called—will cool off and let him return.”
“If he hasn’t died of old age.”
“They’re cooling; it won’t be long. And remember: he knows why he’s here. He decided; it was voluntary. And it has a purpose.”
Frank turned off the motor of the wagon and brought it to a halt. He and Syd stepped gingerly down and walked toward the Refuge. Inside, beyond the transparent wall, Cussick had seen them. He walked toward them, waving.
Cupping his hands to his mouth, Frank shouted: “It’s a boy. It’s adapted—everything’s fine.”
“He can’t hear you,” Syd reminded him gently.
Together, they entered the intermediary lock. There, seated on stools, they clicked on the microphone and warmed up the communication system that linked them to the interior of the Refuge, the finite cosmos beyond. Around them, pipes and circuits wheezed; this was the intricate pumping equipment that kept the atmosphere of the Refuge constant. Beyond that were the thermostatic elements, ripped from the three damaged ships. And beyond that, the most important equipment of all: the manufacturing units that processed the Earthpeople’s food.
“Hi,” Cussick said, standing beyond the viewing wall, hands in his pockets, a cigarette between his lips. His sleeves were rolled up; he had been working in his garden. “How’d it come out?”
“He came out fine,” Syd said.
“Adapted?”
“Totally. A regular monster.”
“Fine,” Cussick said, nodding. “We’ll split a beer on it.”
His wife appeared, a plump, pretty figure in blue slacks and halter, a streak of orange paint across her bare stomach, face glistening with perspiration. In one hand she carried a block of sandpaper and a paint scraper. She looked well-fed and content; quite happy, in fact. “Give her our congratulations,” Nina’s voice came. “It’s a boy?”
“Absolutely,” Frank said.
“It’s healthy?”
“Healthy as a wuzzle,” Frank said. “In fact, it’s the new wuzzle. The replacement wuzzle, a better wuzzle to take the place of the old.”
Puzzled, Nina shook her head. “You’re not coming through. Your words are all garbled.”
“Don’t worry about it,” her husband told her, putting his arm around her waist and pulling her to him. “Worry about the mice in the pantry.”
“Mice!” Syd exclaimed. “You brought mice along?”
“I wanted things to be natural,” Cussick explained, grinning. “I even boxed up some grasshoppers and flies. I want my world to be complete. As long as we have to stay here—“
Over by the synthetic lake, Jackie played happily with his sand castle.
“I want him to know what he’s going to be up against,” Cussick explained. “So he’ll be prepared, when the three of us go back.”