This novel by John Wndham transports us into the anguished heart of a community, where deviants are rooted out and destroyed.
The commandments that David had learned as a child, he had remembered by rote, but they meant nothing to him without a concrete example in the form of Sophie. David was perturbed and puzzled. There was nothing frightful about Sophie – she just seemed to be an ordinary girl. Sophie could not go to school, of course. She would have been found out very quickly.
When she was a little baby, it would not have hurt much. But there would have been marks, and people would have known why. Now Sophie was going away, Mummy had told her that they would have to go if anybody found out.
David decided to run away. His uncle Axel told him that whatever district he went, a Normalcy Certificate would be required. What worried the sailors the most was to see how the things which are against God’s laws flourished in the Badlands, almost as if they had a right to. His unlce told him it might be better if they try being themselves and build for the world that is, instead of the one that’s gone.
David’s father had an elder brother. He was thought to be normal until he was three or four years old. Then his certificate was revoked, and he was sent away.
The arrival of his
sister, Petra, came as a genuine surprise to David. But one did not dare announce a birth unless the child had been officially examined and approved. At long last, Petra’s existence could be acknowledged. And David was formally told that he had a baby sister.
They had a gift, which should have been a blessing but was little better than a curse.
They did not belong. Words have to be chosen and interpreted, thought-shapes you feel inside of you. It was a thing to be sorry, not frightened about.
The
stranger looked at David. David asked what one usually asked of strangers. The stranger pulled out his identity tag, with the current year’s punch mark on it. It was established that neither of them were outlaws.
Some deviant tribes detest the appearance of normality.