Worlds: A Novel of the Near Future Read online

  Well, that reinforces a cliché about groundhogs, that they sit around all day zipped, staring at the cube. But then who are all those people on the street? How do they manage to maintain a complex, technology-intensive society? Somebody must have some sense!

  I think she’s a bit myopic. No government works perfectly; any system attracts its share of crooks. In America and New New, at least they have realtime polling. Look at England, look at the Supreme Socialist Union. By the time the will of the people has percolated to the top, the situation may have changed radically.

  But I like her. She has real fire, and asks hard questions. So many of my classmates are just hard-working drudges, in the business of getting their degrees.

  She wanted to take me down to a little wine-house on Eastriver, but I have to do the class on Crane Monday (talk about drudges) and had better read some criticism or Schaumann will nail me up to dry. I told her we’d do it some time next week; she said there are always a lot of interesting people there, political types.

  It occurs to me that I’m too consciously “observing” people, like an entomologist (Keyes, Joanna; 150 cm. X 40 kg., swarthy, short black hair, burning black eyes, aquiline nose, boyish figure, styleless clothes, radical, cynic, witty, intelligent—and possibly interested in me for reasons other than politics. Which side should I wear the earring on?). Do the people notice?

  16 Sept. Spent all day in the library, after the entertainment lab, which was more folk music. The banjo is a queer instrument; I’d only heard it Dixieland-style, strummed. The man who played for us picked the strings individually, and very fast, though repetitive. He seemed to be day-dreaming, not paying much attention to his fingers. The other soloist played the fiddle, and he was exactly the opposite. He stared down at the instrument with a fixed expression of amazement—am I doing that? He was a big fat man, with a white beard, and his fingers were so huge you would think he couldn’t play anything smaller than a bass. He made sweet music with it, though.

  Most of the management seminar was in the library’s journal room, since our assignment was to analyze a couple of dozen papers on personnel selection, and they didn’t come in until Saturday noon. The ones who could afford copyright just made copies and took them home. Hawkings and I were there all afternoon, scribbling away. So he has a saving grace: at least he’s not rich.

  17 Sept. Waded through Crane and Crane criticism all day. He’s a good writer but I have to keep looking up archaic expressions, especially the dialect: “Dere was a mug come in d’ place d’ odder day wid an idear he was goin’ t’ own d’ place. Hully gee!” (It took me a long stare to figure out that last one was a euphemism for “Holy God!”)

  18 Sept. I was a little nervous, but the Crane class went pretty well. Schaumann assigns each author to a student, in rotation (so I won’t have to do it again for a month). The student gives a half-hour talk about the work and the author; then Schaumann takes over. You aren’t graded on the talk. Schaumann says he teaches that way because he’s lazy, but the real reason is to give himself insurance, providing both a dialectic base for his questions and one sur victim.

  After religion I went down to Eastriver to meet Keyes. Eastriver is a small city in itself, built over the East River about twenty years ago by a group of real estate developers. The developers went bankrupt and the courts still haven’t sorted out the mess. So the place has a temporary, unfinished quality to it. No big buildings; whole blocks of empty space. Some places the foamsteel construction of the bridge itself is only covered by safety gratings. You can watch the river traffic toiling by under your feet.

  I met Keyes at a place called the Grapeseed Revenge. It sits in one corner of a building that evidently will someday be a warehouse, taking up maybe one-twentieth of the shell’s volume. The acoustics are incredible.

  No revolutionary cabal would dare meet in a place like this; it looks too much the part. The only light comes from a candle on each table. The chairs and tables are random mismatched castoffs. Huddled groups talk in low tones. I expected to see pictures of Kowalski and Lenin on the walls.

  Keyes found me while I was still groping blindly through the darkness, before my eyes adjusted to the candlelight. She led me to a table (an old door on legs, actually) and introduced me to three friends.

  One of them did look like a revolutionary. His name was Will, no last name or line name offered. His face looked small, framed by an unruly cloud of hair and beard; he was slight, bony, quick-moving. He was wearing laborer’s overalls (but when I asked what he did he said “sit and think”). The other two were students, Lillian Sterne and Mohammed Twelve. They treated one another with casual affection, like long-time lovers. Lillian is small, blond, and pale as a Yorker; Mohammed is big and black. He was surprised, and pleased, that I knew how important the name Twelve was in African history. His great-grand-father’s brother. That was a bloody time.

  I went through the same sort of quizzing that Keyes had done, mostly from Will. He was didactic and hostile, but intelligent. When he talked, all the others listened carefully. He was obviously used to leading.

  I’m afraid I was guilty of coloring my responses—not really lying, but feeding him what he wanted to hear, pushing him. For instance:

  Will: Suppose one or both of the Coordinators were dishonest—

  Me: They’re politicians.

  Will: Right. What stops them from making vast personal fortunes from import and export?

  Me: Ten billion dollars a week goes through their hands.

  Will: And they have the final say as to suppliers and customers, on Earth.

  Me: They oversee the Import-Export Board.

  Will: I wonder how much someone would pay for, say, the franchise on oxygen.

  Me: Hydrogen; we make our own oxygen. They’d pay plenty, I’m sure.

  And so forth. What I didn’t say was, for instance, no actual money changes hands for hydrogen; it’s a straight barter with U.S. Steel. There’s no doubt a Coordinator could skim off millions—but what could you do with it? Count it? You’d have to go to Earth or Devon’s World to spend it, and people would probably find out, since ex-Coordinators automatically join the Privy Council. They’d miss your vote.

  (The idea of personal wealth certainly distorts Earth politics—what an understatement—but I don’t suppose our system would work with billions of people.)

  It was interesting, though. You don’t meet many real political dissidents in the Worlds; too easy to go someplace else if you don’t like it at home (it strikes me suddenly that there is more political variety in the Worlds than the Earth has had for a century). The Grapeseed Revenge is the quietest bar I’ve found in New York, by far, and the cheapest Large glass of drinkable wine for three dollars. I’ll take Benny next time.

  19 Sept. The new politics course is interesting. The stodgy old Lobbies evolved from a bunch of real pirates—I knew that from University, but it’s fun to go into the actual details of blackmail and bribery. American history is so rich with nasty treasures!

  Watched Jules Hammond at the Worlds Club meeting again. Checked my pulse; still not thrilled. Meeting shifted to Wednesday next week, for the elections.

  Claire Oswald told me I should be careful about the company I keep. She’s on Keyes’s floor, and Keyes is not the most adored person there. Dolores added that the Grapeseed might be watched, and I am after all an alien.

  Maybe I should take Hawkings there instead of Benny. See if he says hello to anyone.

  20 Sept. Small world, as they say on this big world. Benny goes to the Grapeseed all the time. Has met Will, doesn’t like him. Was going to ask me to go there, once he was sure I’d be “comfortable.”

  I kidded him about being a poet and political at the same time; he said he was an unacknowledged legislator of his times. That must be a quote I’m supposed to know.

  We had dinner at the dormitory machines and went on down to the Grapeseed. It’s pretty crowded at night. Will wasn’t there, for which I was doubly glad, bu
t Lillian and Mohammed were; we sat and talked for a couple of hours.

  They’re a beautiful couple, not only because they look so arresting together. They’ve only known each other seven months but fit like gears meshing.

  They talked about emigrating to Tsiolkovski. I tried to talk them out of it. It’s such a joyless, hard place. They keep expanding without ever consolidating, trying to make life comfortable. Maybe I just lack pioneer spirit.

  It’s unlikely they’d be acceptable, anyhow. I don’t think they’ll pay your way up unless both of you have a skill they need. Mohammed is in philosophy, ethics. Lillian’s a double E, electrical engineering, but she’s also Jewish. Not a believer, she says, but it would still be a mark against her. They don’t like conflicting loyalties.

  I did tell them about the Mutual Immigration Pact. If they could get up to New New, or any other World, and become bona fide citizens, then Tsiolkovski would have to take them. Not with open arms, though. Every World needs somebody to shovel shit, and that’s exactly what they’d do for the rest of their lives.

  I didn’t convince them, but maybe I planted a seed. I’d love to see them in the Worlds, but not Tsiolkovski. Not smothered under the blanket of a grey old revolution.

  I got the feeling that there’s something going on that I don’t know about. Maybe Dolores’s warning made me a bit paranoid. But there was something in the way that Lillian and Mohammed and Benny looked at each other. Maybe it’s because Benny was so serious. Just a feeling.

  One of Poe’s stories, “The Purloined Letter,” claims that the best place to hide something is to leave it in plain sight Maybe the Grapeseed Revenge is full of revolutionaries.

  It was after two when we left, so Benny and his conspicuous knife accompanied me home. We had a cup of tea in my room; talked about the James and Fitzgerald readings. He was his old self, witty and animated. I was sort of expecting a sexual overture—inviting one, maybe—but nothing happened. Maybe Benny’s homosexual, or celibate. Maybe I’m not the most ravishing creature in the World, I mean world. (Have to go reread Daniel’s last letter, for confidence.)

  21 Sept. Didn’t mention that before I met Benny yesterday I talked to Hawkings and Lou, at the seminar, and they suggested that I try out some sport that doesn’t involve trajectories—if I learn how to play handball or volleyball here, I’ll just have to start all over again when I get home.

  Hawkings suggested fencing. (He was appalled to find out that I didn’t know how to handle any kind of weapon; I’m afraid I laughed out loud.) There’s a beginners’ group that meets every Thursday morning, so I went down there today.

  They do two kinds, sport fencing and self-defense. I’m sure Hawkings had the latter in mind, but it looks too rough to be fun. I bruise too easily.

  It’s awkward at first. The postures and steps seem artificial, clumsy. But it is exciting—I’ve never played a competitive sport more physical than chess—and the more advanced beginners look as graceful as dancers. It’s a real workout, too, which is what I’m interested in. Hard on the ankles, though.

  We moved into the twentieth century in entertainment seminar today, still doing music. Listened to a couple of hours of jazz, rock, blues, and so forth. Never mentioned Dixieland.

  26 Sept. Haven’t written for several days because I’ve been in the hospital. Hard to write now.

  Thursday night a man attacked me in front of the dorm, as I was coming home from dinner. Right in front of the stairs.

  He came up behind me and squeezed a hand over my mouth, and put a knife to my throat. He told me to drop my bag, and he kicked it away.

  He cut the waistband of my slacks and pulled them down, then pulled down my underclothes, and I bit him, hard. When he pulled his hand away I screamed. I didn’t feel him stab me in the buttock. He wrestled me to the ground and I kept screaming. He banged my head against the sidewalk, twice, forehead and face, then grabbed a handful of hair and jerked up. I was still screaming when he tried to cut my throat; both dormitory doors burst open and six or seven people came charging down the stairs. They tore the man off me and I just lay there slowly fading, while they scuffled with him. A woman turned me over and put my head in her lap, and I vaguely heard a siren over the ringing in my ears.

  The next couple of days are a blur of anesthetics and tranquilizers. Inventory: broken nose, slight concussion, three broken teeth, dislocated shoulder, superficial (!) knife wound below the chin, deep puncture wound in the left buttock, bruises and scrapes all over.

  He really wanted to kill me. I think he wanted to kill me first, and then rape what was left. I can’t imagine such an animal. Whenever I think of him my heart wants to explode with rage. And fear. They say he’s in “grave” condition, from the beating he got from my rescuers. I hope he dies. I really hope he dies. I want to go home.

  27 Sept. Feeling better. They closed all the wounds and put in new teeth the first day, but have been holding me for observation and therapy. I guess the therapy’s working; I haven’t cried all day. For a while it was hours at a time. Maybe I’ve lost the knack.

  I don’t know much about the therapy because most of it’s under hypnosis. A doctor talks to me every morning, checking me. He admitted this morning that there’s a drug involved in the interview (one of my wake-up shots). I knew there was; it makes me babble.

  Benny came by a couple of days ago with my books. I sent him away too abruptly. I didn’t want him there when I started crying, and I didn’t especially want the company of any male. That’s over now.

  Lots of visitors today. Keyes came over and we commiserated about the shortcomings of the male race. We changed the subject when Benny showed up (they know each other, not surprisingly), and we played cards for a while, before they had to go to class. Lou and Hawkings showed up together, on their way to the seminar (Lou left me a tape of Monday’s session, and said he’d make another one tonight). Hawkings had checked with a friend in the New York Police Department, who said the man was probably responsible for five rape-murders over the past two years. They wouldn’t know for sure unless he regained consciousness, to be questioned.

  Dr. Schaumann came in after dinner (Benny had told him why I wasn’t in class) and probably did me more good than the therapist ever would. He was all grandfatherly and comforting, but at the same time he was armed with ruthlessly pragmatic philosophy. You were lucky enough to survive, but now you have to realize that it’s within the man’s power, living or not, to keep hurting you for the rest of your life, unless you vigorously deny him access. It’s like being struck by lightning (something I’d never thought to worry about); you’re not responsible for it happening, but you are responsible if afterward you’re afraid to go outdoors. No amount of rationalization or sympathy from others can alter the fact of your responsibility. He even kissed me. His mustache smells of pipe tobacco.

  They let me stay up to watch the elections. Markus was reelected as Policy Coordinator and announced that he planned to step down after five years. Good thing; fifteen years is plenty. Wouldn’t do to have his coordinator-elect the of old age, in office.

  The new Engineering Coordinator-elect is a woman named Berrigan, a park service engineer. I vaguely remember her name. Didn’t study the candidates this time, since I knew I’d be on Earth. My new floor rep to the Privy Council is Theodore Campbell, whom I had for a disastrous course in algebra some ten years ago.

  Yesterday I wrote that I wanted to go home. I guess Schaumann talked me out of it, obliquely. I won’t let this planet beat me.

  28 Sept. Back at the dormitory. Everyone is so solicitous, I feel like getting a disguise.

  The rapist is dead. By judicial order. The police traced down his address and searched his flat. They found five vials containing five scraps of dried flesh which matched the parts excised from the victims of “Jack the Raper,” as he was called by one subliterate journal. The DNA matched the victims’. Since he had once been convicted of a sex crime, and was under indictment for attacking me, the pol
ice were able to get a court order reducing his MedicAid status to Class C. So they pulled the plug on his life support system, saving the State electricity, twice. I feel confused about it. Could he have been cured? If he were, would I want him walking free? If they had given me the plug, would I have pulled it? I suppose I would.

  Maybe it’s the State disposing of him as casually as swatting a fly. Maybe it’s just that he never knew he was being punished for hurting me.

  There were long and interesting letters from Daniel and John waiting for me. The discovery of CC material on the Moon might be one of the pivotal events in Worlds history. Mudball news never mentioned it.

  15

  Black gold on the Moon

  O’Hara:

  I’m sure Dan has written you about this, but maybe not in much detail. He’s probably the busiest person in the section right now, and loving it.

  You know the polar-orbiting Lunar Prospector satellite? Probably not; it hasn’t done anything new in half a century. It was built to analyze absorption spectra from the lunar surface, to draw a map of mineral deposits on the Moon. One thing we looked for, hoping against hope, was a carbonaceous-chondritic “infall”; a CC meteorite remnant that we could mine for carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen.

  We didn’t really expect to find one, because the temperature of the explosion when a meteorite hits the Moon is enough to decompose a CC rock. All of the precious stuff evaporates into space.

  Well, they decided it was time to refurbish the Prospector, since we have much more delicate sensing and analysis tools now. Technically, it belongs to Devon’s World, but since it was no longer functioning, we claimed it as salvage. That was fine with them, of course, since if we found anything, we’d have to use their mining and launch facilities, at standard royalty.

  The Prospector found an anomaly that seemed worth investigating. It turned out to be a strip of CC gravel, about two kilometers wide by two hundred long. It was evidently the result of a low-velocity impact of a large CC meteorite that hit the surface tangentially, a glancing blow that shattered it into millions of pieces. Most of the chunks are on the order of a centimeter wide (mostly buried in the dust), though there are a few boulders a meter or so wide scattered around.