On My Way to Paradise (63 page)

The social engineers contend that all societies are
equally evil. This belief allows them to create any world they
want, regardless of the suffering it will cause. I decided that
their philosophy is a ruse, meant only to fool themselves.

I could not live in a society engineered by such
people. Yet the only vehicle I’d ever seen for enacting a change in
a society was the one used by the Idealist Socialists. Their
techniques always sickened me on a gut level. The first creed of
the

Idealist Socialists begins: "We believe that in order
to achieve a harmonious relationship among men, we form a new
society with nobler ideals that exalt mankind above the individual
man."

Those are fine-sounding words. They simply say that
they believe the society more important than the individual, and
I’ve never been certain of the virtue of arguing the point.

However, they believe that for a program of social
engineering to have the desired effect, the community to be
engineered must exist in cultural isolation. Thus a fundamental
creed of the Idealist Socialists is that for their "noble
experiment" to succeed they must destroy competing cultures either
by infiltration or genocide. This may seem a fine solution to a
person who believes in Nicita Idealist Socialism, but for those of
us who are not so inclined the idea stinks.

As I pondered, I realized the Idealist Socialists
pollute their own society as they create it. They pee in their own
drinking water, so to speak, for they pretend that their
ideals
can flourish
in
society while individuals become
corrupt—pretend it’s possible to set dedicated socialists to
undermining the freedom of others and murdering innocent civilians
without having their own people lose the love of humanity that
Nicita Idealist Socialism purports to engender.

This is why those of us who view Idealist Socialism
from outside the culture are so easily persuaded that the entire
system is evil. We see the murders, the treachery, the destroyed
lives and lack of respect for humanity the Nicita Idealist
Socialist outlook engenders, and we are
revolted
by the
whole system. As Abriara had said, every society appears evil to
those outside it. I could easily see the evil in Idealist
Socialism. But I’d taken longer to see evil in my own society.

I determined to never again serve an evil society.
I’d never serve my society. I began to look into my heart, examine
my beliefs and consider how to root them out.

But how can a man free himself from his subconscious
beliefs? I wondered.

As Abriara had pointed out, we each have thousands of
expectations thrust upon us by our culture. I expect people to wear
shoes and comb their hair. I couldn’t root out even such minor
expectations. So how would I root out attitudes ingrained over a
lifetime, attitudes I wasn’t even aware of?

It would be easier for a fish to exist outside water.
I began to see that I’d have to leave my society. To stay would
pollute me. Among all the petty utopias floating between the stars,
I reasoned, there must be a place where I could find peace.

I slept again and woke in searing sunlight and the
wind was whistling through pale trees that waved as if they’d
break. Bright clouds raced across the sky and the ground was wet. A
storm had just passed.

I was lying by my side on dark ultraviolet grass that
twisted in coral shapes, looking over a small pond with steep banks
almost round in shape. Abriara, Mavro, and Perfecto were drawing
water from the pond in a pail and drinking. My lips felt parched
and cracked.

A creature walked out of the trees on the far side of
the pond—a dark oily green animal with a long segmented body and
small claws. It walked close to the ground and may have been no
taller than a cat, but it was as long as a man. I tried to discover
what it reminded me of —a scorpion with no stinging tail, a crab
that had been pulled out of shape. I tried to pin it down as
herbivore, predator, or scavenger, but had no data. It skittered
into the water. And I realized it was
itself.
Alone.

I didn’t know if it had an analog on Earth and
couldn’t describe it as being like anything at all, for there was
nothing on Earth like this creature. To make simple associations,
to pretend Baker’s life-forms were like anything on Earth, would be
unjust. It would leave me confused as to their true nature and
might ultimately, prove dangerous.

Abriara gave me a drink and I was very dizzy. "Are
you feeling much better?" she asked. She sat beside me and laid my
head in her lap.

"Some. "

"What can I do to help?"

"Talk. Occupy my mind with pleasant things," I
said.

"Then let’s find something comforting," he proposed.
"I’m curious, what’s it like to have a family? Your mother is
dead—so tell me about your father, brothers, and sisters?"

"My father?" I said. "My father is ..." and I could
think of nothing. My father. I could remember my father sitting in
the chair crying over my mother’s death while Eva’s children
climbed over him. And I could remember nothing after that. Nothing.
Not only had I never seen or heard from him again, I couldn’t
remember ever having wondered where he was. The feeling was totally
inexplicable, as if I’d entered a classroom to take an exam and
found a professor who insisted on testing me on a subject I’d never
even heard of. My father. I backtracked. I could remember all about
my father from before my mother’s death. "My father," I shouted,
"was a weak and cynical man. He was hopeless, frustrated. Quitting
one job after another. He used to say, ‘The unexamined life is not
worth living, but the examined life is no better.’ After my mother
died, he ... he ..."

I was stunned. After my mother died he ceased to
exist for me. I stood up and a terrible fear took me. I could think
of only two explanations: either I’d suffered brain damage or
something so terrible had happened to my father I’d blocked it out
completely. I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run. I
worried greatly and ended up taking an overdose of painkillers to
help me sleep again.

We crossed over some great plains and came to a small
canyon of packed dirt. And in this canyon we passed through a
series of large worn stones that were sculpted perfectly round,
like globes. Each stone stood some eight meters high and they were
arranged in the valley in a huge spiral, like the paintings left on
the caves of some Australian aborigines. The circular stones had
sunk a bit into the ground over many hundreds or perhaps thousands
of years. Yet the sight of them filled me with awe.

They were very much like the tiny stones the desert
lord had thrown at us, yet these were immense—and the fact that
they were arranged in a spiral seemed to hint that they’d been
created as part of an effort by an organized community. I kept
expecting to see caves or stone doors leading into the hillside,
paintings on rock walls. But I could discover no hint of who or
what had fashioned these stones.

We made the coast that afternoon. I tried to dredge
up memories of my father, yet I could think of nothing. I wondered
why I could have blocked out my memories.

Had I found that it was actually
he,
who had
killed my mother? Had he killed himself in a cowardly manner just
after my mother’s funeral? I thought that if I envisioned a
scenario that was close to the truth, perhaps I’d suddenly
remember him. And I became aware that there was another hole in my
memory—the hole where Tatiana, the child in my dreams, would
fit.

Why had she been so important that I continued to
remember only her face and her name? I couldn’t say.

The wind continued to rage. We camped that evening
and my compadres propped me against a tree. My arms and legs
refused to respond as they should. I had barely enough energy to
feed myself, and my arms and legs felt weak like those of an
infant. I wondered about my father long into the night.

I woke the next morning in the hovercraft, whizzing
over the ground. I was lying on my back and could no longer hear
the roaring surf. I felt dissociated from everything. From my past,
from my friends, from my world.

The sky was deep red as if at sunset and there were
no clouds. And no bands of
oparu
no
tako
weaved
across the sky. They’d been decimated by the storms.

We passed under a tree, a battered palm with leaves
that rustled like paper, and the sight of something so intimately
familiar struck me to the heart.

I am returning to Panamá,
I thought with
insane glee.

I am returning to Panamá.

The sun shining on battered leaves reminded me of an
incident that had long lain dormant in my mind. I can’t remember
when it happened, or in what country, but it seemed like something
from my childhood: I remember lying on a cot, looking out a window.
There was a line of trees between two open fields, and a troop of
monkeys was crossing through the trees from one forest into
another. The feeling I had at that time was that it was I who was
traveling, and the monkeys were standing still.

I lay in the bottom of the hovercraft and the feeling
I gained from seeing that one battered palm, the memories it
brought back after the strange fauna of Baker, filled me with a
sense of ease, of euphoria. Against all knowledge to the contrary,
I felt that I was returning home, reentering the borders of my own
lost country.

As the day progressed we passed many palms. By noon
we reached a land that was totally terraformed and forested. White
cockatoos chattered in the trees and feasted on fruit, and there
was no doubt we’d reached the land of the Yabajin.

We camped at night and for the next two days followed
the coastline south. Day and night the gales blew steadily, rushing
from the cool seas into the hot interior, bringing occasional brief
squalls. Yet the sea here was a narrow band and the storms dropped
little rain. The dust thrown up into the atmosphere from winds in
the desert colored the sky a dull yellow-brown during the day and
made for spectacular red sunrises and sunsets.

I began to feel stronger, and that night I lay awake
beside the campfire and listened to the others.

Abriara had been filled with anxiety that day,
stressed and tired. Whenever anyone spoke to her, they had to
address her two or three times before she would answer. After Mavro
went to sleep, Perfecto said, "What is on your mind, little
sister?"

"I am just ... I don’t know. I want it. I want this
planet so bad!"

"Yes," Perfecto said eagerly. "I know. I feel it,
too."

Abriara said, "When we were children, in Temuco,
remember what it was like in the compound? We had nothing!
Absolutely nothing that we could call our own! Captain Guerrera
would give us our clothing or our toys, but nothing ever belonged
to me—just me alone. He gave us shoes, he would always say, ‘Now
remember to share.’ I hated it."

"I know," Perfecto said. "I hated it, too. They
created us’ to be territorial, then gave us nothing to own. Let us
keep nothing."

Abriara laughed. "Remember how we used to hide things
under our beds when we were children? And Guerrera would come and
clean everything out from time to time. I found a doll in the
gutter and hid it for months, moving it, wanting it not because it
was beautiful or clean or even a decent toy, but just because it
was
mine."

Perfecto smiled,
"
Yes, Do you recall Giron and
his sticks. Remember how he used to find sticks and bring them
home—nothing special about the sticks, just plain sticks. If he is
still alive back on Earth, I’ll bet he has a mountain of sticks in
his house."

"That is the way I feel now," Abriara said. "I want
this planet the way Giron wanted his sticks. I want a home. I want
it so bad I cannot think straight! If we win this war, I think I
will die of joy. "

"Ah," Perfecto said. "Would it not be good? To have a
whole planet to ourselves. This longing, it is in our bones. I
never thought I could want so much. Yet I do not want to kill the
Yabajin. I pity them for what will happen when we reach Hotoke no
Za."

On the afternoon of our third day of following the
coastline, we came to the first sign of civilization: we found an
abutment that jutted into the sea, and on a gray stone cliff was
painted a huge white Japanese character, a single word.

I have no idea what the word was, but it seemed a
warning. Above the character was painted a gleaming white samurai
sword, and in streaming red was a piece of graffiti—a single bloody
eye.

We stopped the hovercraft, and stared at the
symbols.

"Do you suppose it’s a warning?" Perfecto asked.

"I’m not sure," Abriara said, "but I’ll bet we’re not
far from Hotoke no Za. Perhaps not more than a few kilometers.
"

"No," Mavro said, "I don’t think so. We can’t be. I
studied the maps. We’re not within two hundred kilometers."

Abriara said, "Do you want to blunder forward and
find out the hard way? We don’t even know if the city will be
visible from the coast. I don’t want to hit a puff mine or come
sliding in under some hidden neutron cannon mounted in the
rocks."

"Maybe there won’t be any defenses left to the city,"
I said hopefully. "Maybe our compadres have already shut off all
the automatic defenses." With the Yabajin we’d met in the desert,
the male population seem3e to have left the city. It would be
defended only by women, the very old, and the very young. Of
course, ten thousand Colombian mercenaries would have shuttled
down.

"No, the defenses won’t be down," Perfecto said.
"Even if Garzón made it through the desert, he said we’d give
battle at dawn on the ninth day after leaving Kimai no Ji. We still
have till morning to find them. Even if for some reason he decided
to fight the battle early and has won the city, Garzón will get the
defenses operating as soon as possible to make sure there are no
reprisals from Motoki or the Yabajin."