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tyrants whom we defeated once, The experiment has failed, come re-enslave usl"
"Not at all," Bedap said promptly. "The message is clear: The experiment has succeeded, we're
strong enough now to face you as equals."
The argument proceeded as before, a rapid hammering of issues. It did not last long. No vote was
taken, as usual. Almost everyone present was strongly for sticking to the Terms of the Settlement, and as
soon as this became clear Bedap said, "All right, 111 take that as settled. Nobody comes in on the
Kuieo Fort or the Mindful. In the matter of bringing Urrasti to Anarres, the Syndicate's aims clearly
must yield to the opinion of the society as a whole; we asked your advice, and we'll follow it. But there's
another aspect of the same question. Shevek?"
"Well, there's the question," Shevek said, "Of sending an Anarresti to Urras."
There were exclamations and queries. Shevek did not raise his voice, which was not far above a
mumble, but persisted. "It wouldn't harm or threaten anyone living on Anarres. And it appears that it's a
matter of the individual's right; a kind of test of it, in fact The Terms of the Settlement don't forbid it. To
forbid it now would be an assumption of authority by the PDC, an abridgment of the right of the Odonian
individual to initiate action harmless to others."
Rulag sat forward. She was smiling a little. "Anyone can leave Anarres," she said. Her light eyes
glanced from Shevek to Bedap and back. "He can go whenever he likes, if the propertarians' freighters
will take him. He can't come back."
"Who says he can't?" Bedap demanded,
"The Terms of the Closure of the Settlement. Nobody win be allowed off the freight ships farther than
the boundary of the Port of Anarres."
"Well, now, that was surely meant to apply to Urrasti, not Anarresti," said an old adviser, Ferdaz,
who liked to stick his oar in even when it steered the boat off the course he wanted.
"A person coming from Unas is an Urrasti," said Rulag.
"Legalisms, legalisms! What's all this quibbling?" said a calm, heavy woman named Trepil.
"Quibbling!" cried the new member, the young man. He had a Northrising accent and a deep, strong
voice. "If you don't like quibbling, try this. If there are people here that don't like Anarres, let 'em go. in
help, in carry 'em to the Port, 111 even kick 'em there! But if they try to come sneaking back, there's
going to be some of us there to meet them. Some real Odonians. And they won't find us smiling and
saying, "Welcome home, brothers." They'll find their teeth knocked down their throats and their balls
kicked up into their bellies. Do you understand that? Is it clear enough for you?"
"Clear, no; plain, yes. Plain as a fart," said Bedap. "Clarity is a function of thought You should learn
some Odonianism before you speak here."
"You're not worthy to say the name of Odo!" the young man shouted. "You're traitors, you and the
whole Syndicate! There are people all over Anarres watching you. You think we don't know that
Shevek's been asked to go to Urras, to go sell Anarresti science to the profiteers? You think we don't
know that all you snivelers would love to go there and live rich and let the propertarians pat you on the
back? You can got Good riddance! But if you try coming back here, you'll meet with justice!"
He was on his feet and leaning across the table, shouting straight into Bedap's face. Bedap looked up
at him " and said, "You don't mean justice, you mean punishment. Do you think they're the same thing?"
"He means violence," Rulag said. "And if there is violence, you will have caused it You and your
Syndicate. And you will have deserved it."
A thin, small, middle-aged man beside Trepil began speaking, at first so softly, in a voice hoarsened
by the dust cough, that few of them heard him. He was a visiting delegate from a Southwest miners'
syndicate, not expected to speak on this matter. "& what men deserve," he was baying. "For we each of
us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us
deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you
punish us for that? Will you reward us for the Virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns
punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you
will begin to be able to think." They were, of course, Odo's words from the Prison Letters, but spoken
in the weak, hoarse voice they made a strange effect, as if the man were working them out word by word
himself, as if they came from his own heart, slowly, with difficulty, as the water wells up slowly, slowly,
from the desert sand.
Rulag listened, her head erect, her face set, like that of a person repressing pain. Across the table
from her Shevek sat with his head bowed. The words left a silence after them, and he looked up and
spoke into it
"You see," be said, "what we're after is to remind ourselves that we didn't come to Anarres for safety,
but for freedom. If we must all agree, all work together, we're no better than a machine. If an individual
can't work in solidarity with his fellows, it's his duty to work alone. His duty and his right. We have been
denying people that right. We've been saying, more and more often, you must work with the others, you
must accept the ride of the majority. But any rule is tyranny. The duty of the individual is to accept no
rule, to be the initiator of his own acts, to be responsible. Only if he does so will the society live, and
change, and adapt, and survive. We are not subjects of a State founded upon law, but members of a
society founded upon revolution. Revolution is our obligation: our hope of evolution. The Revolution is in
the individual spirit, or it is nowhere. It is far all, or it is nothing. If it is seen as having any end, it will never
truly begin.' We can't stop here. We must go on. We must take the risks." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]