Astounding Science Fiction, February 1952 (British Edition) — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CITY OF THE PHOENIX 21 ages and the bruises? And why the sound effects? The moaning and the maniacal chuckling? The odor of burned fiesh?” “Simply to make it horrible, I suspect,” Ter said. “To drive them away. To shock them so that they will not ever return. And it works. I could not get Trillia to take us back. Only Bhorka for whom the experience was still fresh and therefore almost in the conscious level as opposed to the deep sub- conscious to which it is eventually driven. “Also, you will note, that pattern is used as the final whip by the City. When we go into an unused room and close the door, the City knows that something has gone out of control. A deviation from the norm has occurred. So it brings forth this same pattern—screeching gears, expression of pain, odor of burning flesh, and sadistic gloating. One of the curious things about this was that it was so unvarying. The same thing happened whenever we went into an ~ unused room. We thought the City was de- tecting us as strangers. But actually it was just detecting a deviation. And its automatic response to a detected deviation is to use a much intensified form of the pattern of the environment in which the ‘Ordeal’ takes place. A whip to drive a possibly awakening individual back into trance. Or, failing that, to bréak him entirely.” “I guess that makes sense,’ Triccy ad- mitted. “But so what? Where does it leave us?” “It occurs to me,” Ter said, “that you are doing too much talking.” His voice was gentle but he picked up the wrench again. Triccy grinned and folded her hands meekly. “So this gives us a sleepwalking race,” Ter continued. “That is, after they've been through the ‘Ordeal’. But where are they before the ‘Ordeal’? And what are they doing?” Triccy suddenly leaned: forward. “Do you mean—?” “Yes,” he said. “This class of people I mentioned before who have unlimited en- thusiasm but without the depth of penetra- tion to question their environment itself— this class that every civilization has—is its children. A-child has unlimited energy. When it becomes a youth, it can use that energy with great skill and dexterity. But it is characteristic of the immature that they do not ask the basic ‘why?’ They accept things as they are.” He paused to let them absorb the idea. The idea that explained the City. : “So there’s the pattern. The City takes the child as soon as he’s born. It raises him and trains him to do what must be done—to repair the central computer or to do what- ever it is the City cannot do for itself. And when the child begins to become an adult— when he might start thinking too deeply— when he gets dangerous to the Purpose— then he is granted the honor and privilege of submitting to the ‘Ordeal’. And, by operative means, he is made unable to think for himself, or to resist suggestion. Then the shell that is left is sent to the outer City into its world of sleep-suggestive patterns and kept there to breed new generations to continue the incredibly vicious cycle.” ‘How perfectly horrible,? Triccy said to herself. | “Yes,” he agreed. “But what did you ex- pect? The inhabitants of the City are insane. And insanity is always horrible.” Meik grunted. His hands twisted. “Furthermore,” Ter went on, “it did not ‘work. The Plan of the Builders failed. For the children were too bright. They were too clever. They built up their science. But children are conservative. They do not like new environments. They are willing to ex- tend their pattern of life, but not to change it. So even though they developed a higher science, they uséd it neither to change their relation to the City, nor to change the City. Such is always the pattern of immature behavior.” “T see,” Triccy nodded thoughtfully. “And also, when the time came for the City to end—when Torlinda was once again inhabit- able—they prevented its breakdown. The — City should have stopped. They prevented the awakening of the ‘Phoenix.’ And the City kept on—and on—and on. For about two thousand years: longer than it should have.” “Yes,” Ter agreed. “A pitiful irony, that they should work so hard and skillfully to maintain the cause of their adult in- sanity.” The three of them fell into medita- tion on -Ter’s solution of the enigmas of the City. “But,” Triccy said after a few minutes, “the weapon?” “The weapon?” Ter’s eyes slowly focused. “Oh, yes. Our weapon— the weapon that humanity will use te drive the Slugs out of space—is there.” Drama- tically, he pointed to the sleeping boy and girl. “Those two. For the weapon is a science. I told you that. A new science, higher than anything we have. A science that can hold our cruiser pinned to the ground with some field we cannot even COMME OO <S,(e)