FUGUE
By Stephen Marlowe
A NOVELET OF THE FUTURE
Most people actually know a good deal more than they may be aware of at any given moment. And perhaps one of the functions of dreams is to remind us of what we know, but will not let ourselves know on a conscious level....
"This revolt is hopeless, Ker-jon, because it only strikes at the symptoms of unrest, without touching the roots. You may succeed—you may unseat those now in authority. But whoever moves in will only perpetuate the tyranny against which you revolted—renew the same oppression, under different slogans."
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Science Fiction Quarterly November 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Space Ark left its home planet, Urth, two thousand years ago Canopus IV time, arriving here in the Canopus System some five hundred years later. That is all we know for certain; the rest is mere conjecture.
Two salient features of the Space Ark's unique social institutions stand out above the myth and fairytale of our ancestors, however. The first is the fabled story of the Mutant-makers, and when one studies the conditions surrounding this phenomenon, the fabled story becomes cold scientific fact. On a giant balanced-terrarium of a ship which was largely automatic, seemingly isolated forever in the vastnesses of interstellar space, our ancestors lacked even a modicum of external challenge. They thus had to create their own artificial stimuli or face an inevitable retreat down the ladder of decadence to barbarism. It appears that for a time they went too far: they created mutants. These in turn gave rise to a rigid caste-system on the Ark, a system which afforded an extreme in internal challenges and responses.