Worlds: A Novel of the Near Future Read online

  The Club stayed on until closing time, arguing, wondering, worrying. When O’Hara got back to the dormitory, there was a message light blinking for her. Daniel had called six hours before, urgent, and left a prepaid return guarantee. She punched up his number and eventually heard his sleepy voice.

  “Anderson here, no vision.”

  “Daniel, it’s me!”

  The screen lit up to show Dan in his absurd pajamas. “Jesus, sweetheart, where have you been? I called till mid-night.”

  “Worlds Club meeting; lots to talk about.”

  “Shit. I should have called you at the restaurant Look, I’ve got to make a decision fast.”

  She nodded at his image. Four dollars a second, he nodded back at her. As often happens because of the time lag in transmission, they both spoke simultaneously: “Well—” and “Well?” That was good for an eight-dollar chuckle.

  “Cyanamid has closed up shop here completely; they’re calling all of us back, tomorrow. Today.”

  Her voice broke with excitement. “Then you’ll be home in… a week or so?”

  “That’s the decision.” Another expensive pause. “I may be home right now.”

  She frowned slightly. “You mean—”

  “John says he can get me citizenship in five minutes. I, I want to do it. But … I also want you, and now.”

  “So come on down with Cyanamid and then go back to New New next year, with me. I’m sure they’ll pay your way; even if they didn’t—”

  “That’s just it, Marianne! I’m the only specialist in oil-shale chemistry here. They need me now more than ever. And with the embargo they won’t be able to get anyone to replace me. You’ve always told me how important this work was; now I feel it, too, maybe even stronger than you can.”

  “Wait… what are you saying? You want me to help you make this decision? Or just approve of a decision you’ve already made?”

  He looked almost ill. “I don’t know.”

  “Not fair.” She was thinking furiously. “Look. The embargo can’t go on that long….”

  “Don’t bet on it. From here it looks like it may be years—” Dan’s image disappeared in a swirl of rainbow static. It coalesced into that of a man wearing a Bellcom operator’s uniform.

  “I’m sorry; we’re having some transmission difficulty, apparently because of solar activity. Please try again later. Your money will be refunded.”

  “That was a collect call.”

  “Then your caller will have his money refunded.”

  “How do you know it was a man?” she said sweetly, and thumbed it off. Then, on impulse, she punched up ten digits.

  A bald woman in a Bellcom uniform appeared on the screen. “Directory assistance, Devon’s World. May I help you?”

  “Sorry. Wrong number.” Solar activity, in a pig’s ass.

  Daniel dear—

  I’m sorry I was such a bitch on the phone last night. It was a confusing, difficult day and I was bone-tired.

  You are obviously right. Doubly right, in view of the political situation. But even without the current troubles, it would be ultimately best for us for you to stay in New New and become a citizen. It’s where we both belong.

  In fencing, they keep telling us “Fence with your head, not with your heart.” I should apply that more generally.

  Love,

  Marianne

  19

  A few words from Benny

  This is the 15th of October. No entries for the past several weeks, old Journal, because I’ve been trying to sort out my feelings toward Marianne O’Hara; trying to divine her feelings toward me.

  The second part, I fear, is easier. She sees me as a friend whom she can help. Little more. (Surprising how difficult this is to write!) She is accustomed to being casual about sex and, I suspect, enjoys showing off her expertise.

  All of which confounds and delights me. To discover passion so late, and through such a bizarre vehicle. I am obsessed with her. But I dare not put the name “love” to it. Even if the first sight of her in the morning makes my heart stammer.

  It’s strangely appropriate that she isn’t beautiful. She has a more rare quality, concentrated in her expression: striking, magnetic, charismatic. The first time I met her I found it difficult to keep from staring; I’ve seen that struggle a thousand times since, with friends and strangers. She is aware of this quality, of course, but will not discuss it. For me it seems most intense when she is off guard, reading or watching something distant. Her face then takes on (bad pun) an otherworldly calm, which I only yesterday identified with a painting: Botticelli’s Venus. And she Benny’s Aphrodite.

  She was attacked, and badly injured, three weeks ago. I visited her several times in the hospital. The first time she was brusque, almost rude; later she said she was trying to get rid of me so I wouldn’t see her crying. I would give a great deal to see her cry. Or do anything that showed a break in control. She has the soul of a compassionate machine. Bitter Benny. You know she isn’t like that with everyone. I wonder what she is to Daniel, the man she left up in New New York? Or to that Devonite she says she loved so terribly. I don’t even know what she is to me, not honestly. All I know is that I haven’t written a poem in weeks that I didn’t tear up immediately.

  There once was a harlot from space

  With a very remarkable face,

  Whose nethermore part

  Could break a man’s heart

  With a taste of its tiny embrace.

  Still haven’t. Can’t tear this page out, though, or years from now I’ll wonder what I had to hide from myself.

  Trying to be honest: the bitterness is a predictable refraction of thankfulness, indebtedness that can never be discharged. I could have gone through life a eunuch. She gave me new life and all I can do is amuse her.

  (She does laugh well. Last night I caught her off guard, juggling two of her shoes and a piece of candy. When I got them going good and fast I told her “Watch closely… I’m going to eat one of these.”)

  Maybe there’s no room in my life right now for poetry, dominated as it is on one side by this nervous passion for Marianne, and on the other side by ever more complicated politics. I have felt for some time that the Grapeseed Revenge was more than simply a watering hole for hairy grumblers. Now I know for sure.

  There’s been a great deal of angry rhetoric over the Lobbies’ boycott of the Worlds. As if the threat of starvation were not a time-honored aspect of American foreign trade policy. I got so weary of hearing the same things shouted over and over that I began playing devil’s advocate, defending the Senate’s righteous actions against those piratical colonies (that’s not a popular word at the Grapeseed). Marianne was entertained by my ranting, but we had to make a hasty exit, or leave aerially.

  Throughout my act, the strange fellow who calls himself Will—that’s metonymy, not contraction—sat impassively, with a tired smile. Later that night he called. He said he had enjoyed my bit of comedy, and from it had deduced that I might be one who preferred action to empty argumentation. If so, would I meet him and some friends at such-and-so corner; please repeat it and don’t write it down.

  It happens that I do prefer words to action, of course, but I couldn’t help being intrigued. I went to the place at the time specified. After waiting twenty minutes I gave up and walked away. A woman I’d never seen before caught up with me and asked me to follow her. After a confusing subway ride, we wound up on the other side of town. She left me at the door of a tenement and asked me to wait a few minutes, then knock. She left. I was beginning to enjoy it, the comic-opera aspect, but almost walked away myself; if they had a realistic reason for all the mystery, I would just as soon not get involved. Some great poetry has been written in prison, but I don’t think I want to put my own skills to that test.

  Before I could knock or not-knock, the door opened of its own accord. A soft voice bade me come in. It was a large room with only one person in it, standing behind the door. He (I say for convenience)
led me wordlessly to a table in the middle of the room. He was hooded and wore shapeless black fatigues. His tenor voice could have been male or female. He sat me down on a hard chair and sat himself across from me, then from a drawer took a polygraph plate and a clipboard. Did I mind being asked a few questions? I asked him what would happen if I gave the wrong answers. He said I’d given him one already. I was suddenly comforted by the weight of the knife on my belt; glad I’d unsnapped the retaining strap when we’d gone down to the subway.

  I put my hand on the plate and he asked me a number of remarkable questions, to calibrate it. They all had to do with my private life over the past couple of days: trivial things like what I’d had for lunch, whom I’d met when, and so forth. So I’d been under surveillance.

  Then he quizzed me about possible government affiliation (except for a couple of months in the Boy Scouts, I was clean) and then about my political beliefs. I don’t think he liked all of my answers; he wanted a reflex radical.

  After a few minutes of this he got up and led me—reluctantly, I thought—up a flight of stairs, where he rapped on a door and left without a word.

  The man who answered the door startled me. He was blind, with a bugeye prosthesis. Not many people are born blind and rich. He asked me if I was Benny, and shook hands, smiling.

  There were three other people inside, all about my age, sitting around on shabby hotel furniture. The blind man said his name was James, and he introduced the others: Katherine, Damon, and Ray. Offered me tea. When I asked where Will was, he stiffened and said that some of these people didn’t know Will.

  We talked for a while about generalities, uncomfortably, people pointedly avoiding any talk that had to do with their personal lives. James noticed my puzzlement and said they were waiting for one more.

  There was a knock at the door and James sat for a few seconds, then got up and answered it. It was Marianne….

  20

  Welcome to the party

  After the absurd questioning downstairs, and the hide-and-go-seek nonsense that preceded it, I was ready to tell Will he could stick it, and leave. Then I got two sudden shocks.

  The man who opened the door was blind, with huge surgically implanted lenses set in his eye sockets. I’d read about them, but of course had never seen any, not in New New.

  The second shock was Benny. When I saw him sitting there, I thought for a moment that it was all an elaborate joke. Nobody was laughing, though. The blind man introduced me to everybody, saying “You know Benny, of course.” Benny gave me a funny look and I gave him one back, I guess.

  The blind man, James, fixed me a cup of tea. “For the benefit of the two new people, let me outline what we do here.”

  “Does this outfit have a name?” Benny asked.

  “No.” Since the lenses were fixed in place, James had to turn his whole head to look at you. The effect was riveting, machinelike. “We use various names for various purposes. Sugar?”

  “No, thanks.” He stared at the teacup as he brought it over to me.

  “It all sounds very mysterious, I know. Let me try to put your minds at ease.” He sat down and looked at Benny. “We do nothing illegal, at least not beyond the level of misdemeanor.”

  “I once got arrested for littering,” the woman, Katherine, said.

  James nodded slightly. “Handbills. We are a pressure organization, Benny. We write letters, organize rallies, use cube time, and so forth. On another level, we gather information about the government and analyze it, in hopes of eventually building an accurate picture of the country’s actual power structure.”

  “Then why all the secrecy?” I said. “It seems to me you’d want publicity instead.”

  “Mostly insurance. It’s true that we could operate in the open now, though we could expect a certain amount of harassment. Conditions may change, though—the government becoming more oppressive or, perhaps, our tactics becoming more extreme.

  “In essence, we do have a public side, since many of our members belong to other organizations with ambitions similar to ours. We are not shy of using them.

  “We cover a rather wide ideological spectrum, but we are basically libertarian and humanitarian. We believe that the government exercises too much control over individual freedom, and does it in ways that most people are powerless to resist. We want eventually to establish a truly representative form of government, with strong controls on its use of the broadcast media as tools for mass conditioning.”

  That struck a chord. The commercials on the shows that preceded the Worlds boycott referendum were scary. Subtle and powerful.

  “But why me? I’m not even a citizen of this planet.”

  “That’s exactly why. Your objectivity, and experience with other political systems. For your own part, you might consider it a trade; I understand that you plan on politics as a career, once you leave Earth. What you learn here, helping us with our analysis, can only help you later on. Also, the people you meet might prove valuable contacts, eventually.”

  “If you get into power,” Benny said.

  He swiveled. “Some of us do have political ambitions, of course. I think most of us are only interested in seeing the present system replaced by one more responsive to the actual needs of the electorate.”

  “You’re planning a revolution,” Benny said.

  “Not actively,” James said.

  “Where would we get weapons?” The short man, Ray, bustled across the room to fill his cup. “You can’t fight a modern army with knives and homemade bombs.”

  “Not every state has New York-style laws.”

  “Sporting weapons,” Ray said. “Rifles and shotguns. Sorry, you can fight without me.”

  “Well, there’s always Nevada,” Benny said. “You can buy anything from a hand laser to an atom bomb there.”

  “But you can’t get it out,” James said. “The border guards are—”

  “If you can buy an atom bomb, you can buy a CBI man.” I was a little surprised to see Benny talking this way.

  “You seem to have given the matter some thought,” James said.

  He shrugged. “Revolution is inevitable. Whether anything will come of it, I don’t know. It may depend on how prepared we are.”

  “If you had proper organization,” I said, “and the support of most of the people, you might be able to do it without sophisticated weapons. That’s how the Vietnamese won.”

  James laughed. “Looks like we’ve recruited a couple of fire-breathers.”

  “Theory’s cheap,” Ray said, and James gave him a sharp look. “If it did come down to fighting, would you do it? Would you kill people?”

  “I don’t know. The situation has never come up.” Benny touched his knife, probably an unconscious gesture. “I suspect I could kill if somebody was trying to kill me. Of course, it wouldn’t always be that way.”

  Ray nodded, apparently satisfied. James shook his head, microscopically. (Suddenly I visualized what the world must look like to him when he shakes his head or nods.) “I, for one, hope it can be done without violence. None of you is old enough to remember the Second Revolution. I was ten. It was a terrible time.”

  “And look what it accomplished,” Katherine said. “You men. How can you even think of… doing that again?”

  The fourth man, Damon, had been sitting silently, alert He was tall and black. “Katherine. We all would prefer reform to revolution. But we can’t proscribe violence as a possible final resort. It is the State’s last resort against us.”

  “Which they will only use if we provoke it,” she said.

  “Please,” James said, “this is all familiar ground. Shall we get on with the week’s business?”

  Katherine reported on a rally and petition drive, which she had organized but didn’t take part in physically. Ray had been in Washington for the past couple of days, where he had cultivated the friendship of the man who took care of the Senate’s steam room. He’d learned nothing beyond the level of idle gossip, but the man ob
viously could be an important contact some day. Damon had just come back from two weeks in Ketchikan, where he had tried to make contact with a group of non-Separatists, without any success.

  Finally, James asked whether Benny and I might be willing to do some work for the organization.

  “What happens if we say no?” Benny asked.

  “Nothing drastic. We would ask that you not tell anyone about us, and of course we would watch you for a while. Or you may just want some time to think about it; that’s all right, too.”

  “Tell me what it is you want.”

  “Well, we want to take advantage of your writing skill.” He opened a briefcase and handed Benny a thick envelope. “This is stationery with the letterhead of the ‘Committee of Concerned Citizens,’ which has no members other than yourself. Be careful to handle it in such a way as not to add fingerprints to it. The fingerprints on it belong to the Swedish printer who made up the stationery, and the paper itself would be difficult to trace: it was made by an Italian firm that’s been out of business for twenty years.”

  “Sounds like you want a ransom note.”

  He smiled. “Not quite…. Write on a Praktika or Xerox machine; they print with stabilized burners that don’t vary from machine to machine.”

  “There’s one in the Drama library.”

  “Good. We need seven letters, to senators whose votes are crucial to S2876, a bill having to do with public disclosure of corporate income taxes. There’s a shit-sheet on each senator, with at least one fact that would be embarrassing if it were given to the media.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “Not if you word the letters correctly. Willing to try?”

  Benny shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Good. Send me copies at the address on the envelope.

  You’ll find the senators’ home addresses inside; it would be well if you mailed from Grand Central or the main P.O.” He turned to me. “Marianne, how’s your statistics?”