Dr. Futurity Page 4

  "What bothers me," Stenog said, "is that we dropped experimentation with time travel something like eight years ago. The government, I mean. A principle was put forth, showing that time travel was a limited application of perpetual motion and hence a contradiction of its own working laws. That is, if you wanted to invent a time machine, all you'd have to do was swear or prophesy that when you got it working, the first use you'd put it to would be to go back into time, to the point at which you got interested in the idea." He smiled. "And give your earlier self the functioning, finished piece of equipment. This has never happened; evidently there can be no time travel. By definition, time travel is a discovery that, if it could be made, would already have been made. Perhaps I oversimplified the proof, but substantially--"

  Parsons interrupted, "That assumes that if the discovery had already been made, it would be publicly known. Recognized. But nobody saw me leave my own world." He gestured. "And do you think they realize now what's happened? All they know is that I disappeared, with no trace. Would they infer that I was carried into time?" He thought of his wife. "They don't know," he said. "There was no warning." Now he told Stenog the details; the younger man listened attentively.

  "A force field," Stenog said presently. With a sudden shudder of anger he said, "We shouldn't have given up experimentation; we had a good deal of basic research done, hardware constructed." Now, he pondered. "That hardware--God knows what became of it. The research never was kept secret. Presumably the hardware was sold off; a lot of valuable components were involved. That was last year or so. We had it so clearly in mind that time travel would show up in some vast historic way, interfere with the collapse of the Greek City States, assist the success of Napoleon's European plan and thereby obviate the following wars. But you're implying a secret, limited time travel. For some personal reasons. Not official, not for social aims." His boyish face drew into a troubled scowl.

  "If you recognize that I'm from another time," Parsons said, "From another culture, how can you convict me for what I did?"

  To that, Stenog nodded. "You had no knowledge, of course. But our law has no clause about 'persons from another culture.' There is no other culture, no diversity whatever. Ignorant or not, you have to stand trial for sentence. There's a historic concept: Ignorance of the law is no excuse. And isn't that what you're claiming?"

  The patent injustice of it staggered Parsons. Yet he could not tell from Stenog's tone just how serious the man was; the faintly detached, ironical quality could not be interpreted. Was Stenog mocking himself?

  Parsons said stiffly, "Can't you use your reason?"

  Chewing his lip, Stenog said, "You have to abide by the laws of the community in which you live. Whether you came voluntarily or not. But"--He now appeared to be genuinely concerned; the irony had gone--"possibly some suspension can be worked out. The motions could be gone through."

  Going from the room, he left Parsons alone for a time. When he returned he carried a polished oak box with a lock on it. Seating himself, he produced a key from his robe and unlocked the box. Out of it he lifted a massive white wig. With solemnity, he placed the wig on his head; at once, with his dark hair concealed, and the heavy rolls of the wig outlining his face, he lost the appearance of youth. A gravity and importance entered his appearance.

  Stenog said, "As Director of the Fountain, I have the authority to pass judgment on you." From beneath his peruke, he scrutinized Parsons. "What we mainly have to consider is the formal procedure of exile."

  "Exile!" Parsons echoed.

  "We don't maintain our prison colonies here. I forget what system your culture employed. Work camps? C.C.C. in Soviet Asia?"

  After a pause, Parsons managed to say, "By my time the C.C.C. camps were gone. So were the slave labor camps in Russia."

  "We make no attempt to rehabilitate the criminal," Stenog said. "That would be an invasion of his rights. And, from a practical standpoint, it doesn't work. We don't want substandard persons in our society."

  "The shupos," Parsons said, with dread. "They're involved in these colonies?"

  Stenog said, "The shupos are too valuable to be sent off Earth. A good deal of them are our youth, you understand. Especially the active element. The shupo organization maintains youth hostels and schools set apart from society, operated in the Spartan manner. The children are trained both in body and in mind. They're hardened. The activity that you saw, the raid on the illegal political group, is incidental, a sort of field expedition. They're quite zealous, the boys from the hostels. On the streets they have the right, as individuals to challenge any person they feel is not acting properly."

  "What are the prison colonies like?"

  "They're city sized. You'll be free to work, and you'll have a separate dwelling of the apartment type where you can pursue various hobbies or creative crafts. The climate, of course, isn't favorable. Your life-span will be cut down enormously. Much depends on your own stamina."

  "And there's no way I can appeal your decision?" Parsons demanded. "No trial system? The government brings the charges and then acts as the judge? Merely by putting on a medieval periwig--"

  "We have the girl's signed complaint," Stenog said.

  At that, Parsons stared at him. He could not believe it.

  "Oh, yes," Stenog said. "Come along." Rising, he opened a side door, beckoning Parsons to follow him. Formidable and solemn in his wig, he said, "Possibly this will tell you more about us than anything you have seen so far."

  They passed by door after door; Parsons, in a daze, followed the bewigged younger man, barely able to keep up with his springy step. At last Stenog halted at a door, unlocked it, and stepped aside for Parsons to enter.

  On the first of several small stages lay a body, partly covered by a white sheet. Icara. Parsons walked toward her. Her eyes were shut and she did not move. Her skin had a faded, washed-out quality.

  "She filed the complaint," Stenog said, "just before she died." He switched on a light; gazing down, Parsons saw that beyond any doubt the girl was dead, possibly had been for several hours.

  "But she was recovering," he said. "She was getting well."

  Reaching down, Stenog lifted the sheet back. Along the side of the girl's neck, Parsons saw a careful, precise slash. The great carotid arteries had been cut, and expertly.

  "In her complaint, she charged you with deliberately obstructing the natural process of seelmotus," Stenog said. "As soon as she had filled out this form she called her residential euthanor and underwent the Final Rite."

  "Then she did it herself," Parsons said.

  "It was her pleasure. By her own will she undid the harm you had attempted." Stenog shut off the light.

  FIVE

  In his own personal car, Stenog took him to his house for dinner.

  As they drove through the afternoon traffic, Parsons tried to see as much of the city as possible. Once, when the car halted for a three-level bus, he rolled down the window and leaned out. Stenog made no move to inhibit his actions.

  "There's where I work," Stenog said once. He slowed the car and pointed. A flat building, larger than any others that Parsons had seen, lay to their right. "That's where we were-- in my office at the Fountain. That means nothing to you, but you were at the most highly guarded spot we possess. We've been all this time getting through the check-stations." They had been in the car now for almost half an hour. "Every day I have to go through this," Stenog said. "And I'm the Director of the Fountain. But they check me, too."

  A final uniformed guard halted the car, took the flat black card that Stenog showed him, and then the car started up onto a through ramp. The city fell below them.

  "The Soul Cube is at the Fountain," Stenog said, by way of explanation. "But that makes no sense to you either, does it?"

  "No," Parsons said. His mind was still on the girl, and on her death.

  "Concentric rings," Stenog continued. "Zones of importance. Now, of course, we're out in the tribal areas again." The brightly colored dots t
hat Parsons had first seen now passed by them at high velocity; Stenog did not appear to be a fast driver. In the daylight, Parsons noticed that each passing car had one of the tribal totem animals painted on its door, and, on the hoods, metal and plastic ornaments that might have been totem--the cars moved by too fast for him to be certain.

  "You'll stay with me," Stenog said, "until time for your emigration to Mars. That should be in a day or so; it takes a little time to arrange transportation, what with all the red tape and government forms."

  The house, small, part of a group of many houses built along the same lines, reminded Parsons of his own house. On the front steps he halted for a moment.

  "Go ahead in," Stenog said. "The car parks itself." His hand on Parsons' shoulder, he steered him up the steps and onto the porch. The front door, open, let out the sound of music. "You lived before the age of radio, didn't you?" Stenog said as they entered.

  "No," Parsons said. "We had it."

  "I see," Stenog said. He seemed tired, now, at the end of the day. "Dinner should be ready," he murmured; sitting down on a long low couch he removed his sandals.

  As Parsons moved about the living room he realized that Stenog was gazing at him oddly.

  "Your shoes," Stenog said. "Didn't you people take off your shoes when you entered a house?"

  After Parsons had removed his shoes Stenog clapped his hands. A moment later a woman appeared from the back of the house, wearing a flowing, brightly colored robe, her feet bare. She paid no attention to Parsons. From a low cabinet set against the wall she brought forth a tray on which stood a ceramic pot and a tiny glazed cup; Parsons smelled tea as the woman set the tray down on a table near the couch on which Stenog sat. Without a word, Stenog poured himself tea and began to drink.

  None for me, Parsons thought. Because he was a criminal? Or were all guests treated this way? The differing customs. Stenog had not introduced the woman to him. Was she his wife? His maid?

  Gingerly, Parsons seated himself on the far end of the couch. Neither Stenog nor the woman gave any sign that he had done rightly or wrongly; the woman kept her black eyes fixed on Stenog while he drank. She, too, like all the others Parsons had seen in this world, had the long shiny hair, the dark coloring; but in her he thought he saw one difference. This woman seemed less dainty, more heavily built.

  "This is my puella," Stenog said, having finished his cup of tea. "Let's see." He relaxed, yawned, obviously glad to be out of his office and in his own home. "Well, there's probably no way I can express it to you. We have a legal relationship, recorded by the government. It's voluntary. I can break it; she can't." He added, "Her name is Amy."

  The woman held out her hand to Parsons; he took it, and found himself shaking hands. This hadn't changed, this custom. The sense of continuity raised his morale slightly, and he found himself, too, relaxing.

  "Tea for Dr. Parsons," Stenog said.

  While the two men sipped tea, Amy fixed dinner somewhere out of sight, behind a fragile-looking screen that Parsons recognized as distinctly Oriental. And here, as in his office, Stenog had a harpsichord; on this one stood a stack of sheet music, some of it very old looking.

  After dinner, Stenog rose and said, "Let's take a run down to the Fountain." He nodded to Parsons. "I want you to understand our point of view."

  Together, in Stenog's car, they drove through the night darkness. The air, fresh and cold, blew around Parsons; the younger man kept the windows down, clearly from habit. He seemed withdrawn into himself, and Parsons did not try to talk to him.

  As they were being processed through the check-stations once more, Stenog abruptly burst out, "Do you consider this society morbid?"

  "There are strains of it," Parsons said. "Visible to an outsider. The emphasis on death--"

  "On life, you mean."

  "When I first got here, the first person who saw me tried to run me down and kill me. Thinking I wanted to be killed." And Icara, he thought.

  "That person probably saw you roaming around alone at night, on foot, on the public highway."

  "Yes," Parsons said.

  "That's one of the favorite ways for certain types of dashing individuals with a flair for the spectacular. They go out on the highway, outside the city, and it's the custom that the cars that see them run over them. It's time-honored, established. Didn't persons in your society go out at night, onto bridges, and throw themselves off?"

  Parsons said, "But they were a trivial few, a mentally disturbed minority."

  "Yet the custom, even so, was established within society! It was understood. If you decided to kill yourself, that was the proper way." Now, working himself up emotionally, Stenog said, "Actually, you know nothing about this society--you just came here. Look at this."

  They had come out in a huge chamber. Parsons halted, impressed by the maze of corridors that stretched off in all directions. Even at night, work continued; the corridors were active and alight.

  One wall of the chamber looked onto the edge of a cube. Going in that direction, Parsons discovered with a shock that he was seeing only a slice of the cube; virtually all of it lay buried in the ground, and he could only infer dimly what its full size might be.

  The cube was alive.

  The ceaseless undercurrent drummed up from the floor itself; he felt it moving through his body. An illusion, created by the countless technicians hurrying back and forth? Self-regulated freight elevators brought up empty containers, loaded themselves with new material and descended again. Armed guards prowled back and forth, keeping an eye on things; he saw them watching even Stenog. But the sense of life was not an illusion; he felt the emanation from the cube, the churning. A controlled, measured metabolism, but with a peculiar overtone of restlessness. Not a tranquil life, but with the tidal ebb and flow of the sea. Disturbing to him, and also to the other people; he caught, on their faces, the same fatigue and tension that he had seen with Stenog.

  And he felt coldness rising from the cube.

  Odd, he thought. Alive and cold . . . not like our life, not warm. In fact, he could see the breaths of the individuals in the corridors, his own, Stenog's, the white fog blown out by each of them. The pneuma.

  "What is in it?" he asked Stenog.

  Stenog said, "We are."

  At first, he did not understand; he assumed the man meant it metaphorically. Then, by degrees, he began to see.

  "Zygotes," Stenog said. "Arrested and frozen in cold-pack by the hundred billion. Our total seed. Our horde. The race is in there. Those of us now walking around--" He made a motion of dismissal. "A minute fraction of what's contained in there, the future generations to come."

  So, Parsons thought, their minds aren't fixed on the present; it's the future that's real to them. Those to come, in a sense, are more real than those who are walking around now.

  "How is it regulated?" he asked Stenog.

  "We keep a constant population. Roughly, two and three-quarter billion. Each death automatically starts a new zygote from cold-pack along its regular developmental path. For each death there is an instantaneous new life; the two are interwoven."

  Parsons thought, So out of death comes life. In their view, death is the cause of life.

  "Where do the zygotes come from?" he inquired.

  "Contributed according to a specific and very complex pattern. Each year we have Lists. Contest examinations between the tribes. Tests that cover all phases of ability, physical fitness, mental faculties, and intuitive functioning at every level and of every description and orientation. From the most abstract to the object-correlatives, the manual skills."

  With comprehension, Parsons said, "The contribution of gametes is proportional to the test ratings of each tribe."

  Stenog nodded. "In the last Lists the Wolf Tribe gained sixty victories out of two hundred. Therefore it contributed thirty percent of the zygotes for the next period, more than the three next highest-scoring tribes. As many gametes as possible are taken from the actual high-scoring men and women.
The zygotes are always formed here, of course. Unauthorized zygote formation is illegal . . . but I don't want to offend your sensibilities. Extremely talented persons have made substantial contributions, even where their particular tribes have scored low. Once a gifted individual is located, all efforts are made to obtain his or her total supply of gametes. The Mother Superior of the Wolf Tribe, for example. None of Loris' gametes are lost. Each is removed as it is formed and immediately impregnated at the Fountain. Inferior gametes, the seed of low-scores, are ignored and allowed to perish."

  Now, with first real clarity, Parsons grasped the underlying scheme of this world. "Then your stock is always improving."

  "Of course," Stenog said, surprised.

  "And the girl, Icara. She wanted to die because she was maimed, disfigured. She knew she would have had to compete in the Lists that way."

  "She would have been a negative factor. She was what we call substandard. Her tribe would have been pulled down by her entry. But as soon as she was dead, a superior zygote, from a later stock than her own, was released. And at the same time a nine month embryo was brought out and severed from the Soul Cube. A Beaver died. Therefore this new baby will wear the emblem of the Beaver Tribe. It will take Icara's place."

  Parsons nodded slowly. "Immortality." Then death, he realized, has a positive meaning. Not the end of life. And not merely because these people wish to believe, but because it is a fact. Their world is constructed that way.

  This is no idle mysticism! he realized. This is their science.

  On the drive back to Stenog's house, Parsons contemplated the bright-eyed men and women along the route. Strong noses and chins. Clear skins. A handsome race of imposing men and full-breasted young women, all in the prime of youth. Laughing, hurrying through their fine city.

  He caught a glimpse, once, of a man and woman passing along a spidery ramp, a strand of shimmering metal connecting two spires. Neither of them was over twenty. Holding hands as they rushed along, talking and smiling at each other. The girl's small, sharply-etched face, slender arms, tiny feet in sandals. A rich face, full of life and happiness. And health.