Decision at Doona

Chapter II. ESCAPE

IT REQUIRED EVERY ounce of self-control Ken Reeve had developed over the frustrating years of his adulthood to keep from shouting, singing, jumping or committing a number of other social solecisms.

As it was, he received stern, remanding looks from the other passengers in the express lift for the wide smile he couldn't repress.

He did make an effort to compose his face, to moderate his breathing to the proper shallowness, but the mere knowledge that in the very near future he would have a whole new world to breathe in made it difficult for him to conform.

Nevertheless, because he couldn't risk an official summons which might delay his triumphant return to Patricia, he did hunch his shoulders forward, tucked his elbows tight to his straining rib cage, sucked in his guts and pressed his knees together in the proscribed stance socially acceptable in an elevator.

It was still impossible to limit his exultation, which he was evidently broadcasting, judging by the constant surreptitious looks he received as the cage plummeted down to the dormitory levels.

Never before had Ken been so aware of the weight, warmth and aroma of humanity, or of the crowded life that had seemed inescapable; from which he was actually going to escape. As never before, he was conscious of the odor of a confined crowd: a composite of inefficient multiscented perspirant inhibitors, breath cleansers, digestive neutralizers, the acrid overtones of body-warmed inorganic fabrics, the hot-metals-old-paint stink, and, over all, the air-conditioner's deodorizer, which had never been successful.

Stale air breathed by stale people into stale lungs to prolong stale lives in a stagnant society!

The hydraulics were faulty again, Ken noticed, for the elevator stopped with a sickening jolt. There had been a newscast recently, urging young adults to apply for a career in maintenance. Not even the failure of two high-speed freight elevators had stimulated any response to the call, though there had been wide muttering about the lack of public spirit in the upcoming generation. No one in his packed cage appeared to notice the jerking stop, but then, Ken thought as he felt the pressure of soft flesh against him, we're so tightly jammed in, no one could get hurt in a free-fall.

The wide doors slid reluctantly open. Ken mastered the incredible urge to stride recklessly through the socially acceptable shuffle of the disembarking. Heads shoulders bobbed forward around him. The hair on his shins stood out in radar-like sensitivity to the constant proximity of other legs. He gritted his teeth, wanting to race down the walk-belt of the 235th Hall, but he doggedly matched his step with the other hundreds in that rippling sea of bodies. The creeping pace was endurable if he thought of the fields and hills he would soon be able to stride over. Did anyone – any one of his presently close fellow travelers – know what a 'field' was? A 'hill'? He'd wager they'd never even applied for a day at their local Square Mile.

But the wager he'd made after he had seen a Square Mile had paid off. He, his wife, Pat, the two kids, Ilsa and Todd, were going to leave the land warrens of Earth for the naked soil and sky of Doona. Doona! The name had a talismanic ring: a fresh air ring, a real food ring, a landscape ring – a freedom ring!

The 235th Hall had never seemed so long to him, nor the walk-belt so slow. It crawled past block after block until Ken felt every muscle twitching at the restraints he had to impose on himself. But Proctors were everywhere in the Hall, just waiting for a misdemeanor to break the monotony of their four-hour watch. Ken had heard it rumored that Proctors received extra calories for every conviction.

Well if that were so, he snorted to himself, innocently returning the shocked glances cast in his direction as he turned guilt from himself with practiced ease, their Aisle Proctor ought to be one helluva lot fatter than he was.

Up ahead, he heard a murmuring. He glanced over the barely bobbing heads, lucky enough to be taller than most of the run of his generation. He could hear a snuffling, the outraged mumble, the slight flurry of moving bodies.

A case of flatulence, no doubt, he decided with an inward chuckle. That offense'd reduce a lot of calories for someone if the criminal could be identified.

Fortunately, before he reached the scene of the crime, he got to his Corridor turn.

“Turn, please,” he murmured in the properly distressed tone required of a citizen imposing on his fellows.

With mechanical promptitude, the bodies directly to his right squeezed either backward or forward and permitted him space enough to slip sideways to the edge of the moving walk-belt and onto the stationary plastic floor.

“Corridor, please,” he repeated endlessly as he sidled, a step at a time, toward the 84th Corridor.

Christ, but it would be great to walk out without having to consult the schedule for Pedestrian Traffic in Hall and Corridor Routes. He could have been home from the Codep Block four hours ago. Of course, it had been great meeting the rest of the Phase III group. Their leader and the metropologist of the group, Dr. Hu Shih, was quite a guy; soft-spoken but firm, he seemed to know every frame of the Spacedep survey and the Alreldep reports. Hu Shih must have just got in under the age wire, too.

Ken spared a moment of wonder for the courage and tenacity of the many, many Codep assignees who never had made it off-planet, or who had turned overage before Spacedep released even a resources planet to Codep. God, to live a whole lifetime with nothing-nothing but a dream that would never be realized! To put up with the inferior quarters all inactive Codepers were given, the subsistence allowance, the disrespect, the sneers and condescension – and then never get off-planet? Well, that had been one of the arguments of his friends and family when he'd applied: Codep men died young – suicides!

But not Ken Reeve. He and his were going. And the dream that had taken fire the day he'd stood on the amazing soil of his Regional Square Mile, felt grass, seen sky above him, blue and limitless, was going to be ful-filled.

Inadvertently Ken had lengthened his stride in the Corridor and trodden on the heels of a citizen in front of him.

“Your number?” the man rasped out indignantly.

"I'll be off-world before you can bring it to Court," Ken replied in a loud, carefree voice. Suddenly he no longer cared about earth-bound conventions-not when he would soon have a whole planet to conquer. I'm going to Doona!"

Indignation turned to shocked outrage.

“Off-world? He's mad!” “Idiot!” “Social deviant!” “Anarchist!” were some of the clearly projected whispers around him.

“Your number!” the offended citizen demanded again.

«Sweat it, man,» Ken advised him crudely and hopped off the Corridor, ducking down the Aisle three up from his own. Let that proper citizen search for him there! And Ken didn't care that it would take him another fifteen minutes – even at the acceleration permitted in an Aisle – to double back to Aisle 45.

At a heel-thumping walk, he passed two shuffling women, arm-locked, faces nose-to-nose as they carried on a private mutter.

They squealed thinly as he thudded past them, but he had put too many other pedestrians between himself and them before they could form a protest.

Fortuitously his own Aisle was sparsely occupied – Todd had driven away any resident who could wangle a transfer. He lengthened his stride, passing others without the customary obsequiousness, ignoring the exclamations of those who did recognize him. Their complaints, too, would not come up on the docket before he left. And thank God, Pat and the kids would be transferred to Co-dep's Cubed Block now that the whole family was on active assignment.

Active assignment! He chanted the alliteration like a prayer. Maybe now they rated additional acoustical shielding so that Pat wouldn't suffer so much ostracism because of Todd's asocial traits. Active assignment aids additional acoustics, he expanded the litany, grinning foolishly.

As he threw open the door to their two rooms, he heard Pat's startled warning. He managed to prevent the door handle from jamming into the thin back threatened by his precipitate entrance.

“Mr. Reeve, it is easy to see where your son received his unsocial tendencies,” a whining whisper informed him.

Quickly closing the door behind him, Ken stared down at the socially correct, emaciated skeleton that housed the petty spirited Proctor of their Aisle Section.

“A pleasant day to you,” Ken replied with such jaunty good humor that Pat, who had obviously been taking a terrible tongue-lashing, stared at him with dawning hope.

“How can it be pleasant when a steady stream of tenants report insupportable noise emanating from these rooms?” Proctor Edgar demanded.

“Oh, but it is the pleasantest of days. Now take your nosy intolerant bitching elsewhere!”

“Ken!” Pat screamed in a well-trained sotto voce. Then the strain and pallor of her face were replaced by incredulous joy. “Active assignment?”

“You bet!”

“Mr. Reeve. Moderate your voice this instant. Your family has already been reported nine times this week for social misdemeanors. I am reluctant to reduce your calorie allowance any further but I must demand . . .”

“Demand away,” Ken encouraged him, beaming at Pat. “You have no jurisdiction over us any more. We're out of it. We're going to Doona!”

“Doona!” Pat stifled her elation but she could not suppress the relief she felt, even in the presence of non-family observers. “Oh, Ken, is it really true?”

“True-true-true, Pat,” and Ken, deliberately aggravating the outraged Proctor, picked up his wife and kissed her lustily.

Reeve!" the Proctor's protest was barely audible over the smack of the embrace.

“Get out if you can't stand it,” Ken advised. “Go invade someone else's privacy on the excuse of official business.” He kept his hold on his wife with one arm as he opened the door and shoved the Proctor back into the Aisle. At the door's resounding slam, Pat came to her senses.

"Ken, you're mad. He'll, he'll – " she floundered helplessly.

«He can't do a damned thing to us, not ever again,» Ken assured her, burying his face in Pat's silky hair and hugging her for the joy bursting inside him. «We're going. We're going to be free to run and yell and stride and – feel!»