Four for Tomorrow Part 11

"Wait a minute," asked Moore. "That first one-? Are you programmed to explain anything about it?"

"I am sorry, I am not. That would require a more 66 complicated unit."

"Repeat the copyright date of the book."

"2016, in the North American Union-"

"And it's his most recent work?"

"Yes, he is a member of the Party Set and there is gen- erally a lapse of several decades between his books."

"Continue reading "

The machine read on. Moore knew little concerning verse, but he was struck by the continual references to ice and cold, to snow and sleep.

"Stop," he told the machine. "Have you anything of his from before he joined the Set?"

"Paradise Unwanted was published in 1981, two years 90.after he became a member. According to its Forward, however, most of it was written prior to his joining."

"Read it."

Moore listened carefully. It contained little of ice, snow, or sleep. He shrugged at his minor discovery. His seat immediately adjusted and readjusted to the move- ment.

He barely knew Unger. He did not like his poetry.

He did not like most poetry, though.

The reader began another.

" 'In the Dogged House,'" it said.

" 'The heart is a graveyard of crigas, hid Jar from the hunter's eye, where love wears death like enamel and dogs crawl in to die . . .'"

Moore smiled as it read the other stanzas. Recognizing its source, he liked that one somewhat better.

"Stop reading," he told the machine.

He ordered a light meal and thought about Unger. He had spoke with him once. When was it?

2017 . . . ? Yes, at the Free Workers' Liberation Cen- tennial in the Lenin Palace.

It was rivers of vodka. . . .

Fountains of juices, like inhuman arteries slashed, spurted their bright umbrellas of purple and lemon and green and orange. Jewels to ransom an Emir flashed near many hearts. Their host, Premier Korlov, seemed a happy frost giant in his display.

67 ... In a dance pavilion of polaroid crystal, with the world outside blinking off and on, on and off-like an advertis.e.m.e.nt, Unger had commented, both elbows rest- ing on the bartop and his foot on the indispensable rail.

His head had swiveled as Moore approached. He was 91.a bleary-eyed albino owl. "Albion Moore, I believe," he had said, extending a hand. "Quo vadis dammit?"

"Grape juice and wadka," said Moore to the unneces- sary human standing beside the mix-machine. The un- formed man pressed two b.u.t.tons and pa.s.sed the gla.s.s across the two feet of frosty mahogany. Moore twitched it toward Unger in a small salute. "A happy Free Work- ers' Liberation Centennial to you."

"I'll drink to liberation." The poet leaned toward and poked his own combination of b.u.t.tons. The man in the uniform sniffed audibly.

They drank a drink together.

"They accuse us"-Unger's gesture indicated the world at large-"of neither knowing nor caring anything about un-Set things, un-Set people."

"Well, it's true, isn't it?"

"Oh yes, but it might be expanded upon. We're the same way with our fellows. Be honest now, how many Setmen are you acquainted with?"

"Quite a few."

"I didn't ask how many names you knew."

"Well, I talk with them all the time. Our environment is suited to much improvement and many words-and we have all the time in the world. How many friends do you have?" he asked.

"I just finished one," grunted the poet, leaning forward.

"I'm going to mix me another."

Moore didn't feel like being depressed or joked with and he was not sure which category this fell into. He had been living inside a soap bubble since after the ill- starred Davy Jones Party, and he did not want anyone poking sharp things in his direction.

"So, you're your own man. If you're not happy in the Set, leave."

You're not being a true tovarisch," said Unger, shaking a finger. "There was a time when a man could tell his 92.troubles to bartenders and barfriends. You wouldn't re- member, though-those days went out when the nickle- 68 plated barmatics came in. d.a.m.n their exotic eyes and scientific mixing!"

Suddenly he punched out three drinks in rapid succes- sion. He slopped them across the dark, shiny surface.

"Taste them! Sip each of them!" he enjoined Moore.

"Can't tell them apart without a scorecard, can you?"

"They're dependable that way."

"Dependable? h.e.l.l yes! Depend on them to create neurotics. One time a man could buy a beer and bend an ear. All that went out when the dependable mix-ma- chines came in. Now we join a talk-out club of manic change and most unnatural! Oh, had the Mermaid been such!" he complained in false notes of frenzy. "Or the b.l.o.o.d.y Lion of Stepney! What jaded jokes the fellows of Marlowe had been!"

He sagged.

"Aye! Drinking's not what it used to be."

The international language of his belch caused the mix-machine attendant to avert his face, which be- trayed a pained expression before he did so.

"So I'll repeat my question," stated Moore, making conversation. "Why do you stay where you're unhappy?

You could go open a real bar of your own, if that's what you like. It would probably be a success, now that I think of it-people serving drinks and all that."

"Go to! Go to!' I shan't say where!" He stared at noth- ing. "Maybe that's what I'll do someday, though," he reflected, "open a real bar. ..."

Moore turned his back to him then, to watch Leota dancing with Korlov. He was happy.

"People join the Set for a variety of reasons," Unger was muttering, "but the main one is exhibitionism, with the t.i.tillating wraith of immortality lurking at the stage door, perhaps. Attracting atention to oneself gets harder 93.and harder as time goes on. It's almost impossible in the sciences. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries you could still name great names-now it's gieat research teams. The arts have been democratized out of existence -and where have all the audiences gone? I don't mean spectators either.

"So we have the Set," he continued. "Take our sleep- ing beauty there, dancing with Korlov-^"

"Huh?"

"Pardon me, I didn't mean to awaken you abruptly. I was saying that if she wanted attention Miss Mason couldn't be a stripper today, so she had to join the Set.

69 It's even better than being a threelie star, and it requires less work-"

"Stripper?"

"A folk artist who undressed to music."

"Yes, I recall hearing of them."

"That's gone too, though," sighed Unger, "and while I cannot disapprove of the present customs of dress and undress, it still seems to me as if something bright and frail died in the elder world."

"She is bright, isn't she?"

"Decidedly so."

They had taken a short walk then, outside, in the cold night of Moscow. Moore did not really want to leave, but he had had enough to drink so that he was easy to persuade. Besides that, he did not want the stumbling babbler at his side to fall into an excavation or wander off lost, to miss his flight or turn up injured. So they shuffled up bright avenues and down dim streets until they came to the Square. They stopped before a large, dilapidated monument. The poet broke a small limb from a shrub and bent it into a wreath. He tossed it against the wall.

"Poor fellow," he muttered.

"Who?"

94."The guy inside."

"Who's that?"

Unger c.o.c.ked his head at him.

"You really don't know?"

"I admit there are gaps in my education, if that's what you mean. I continually strive to fill them, but I always was weak on history. I specialized at an early age."

Unger jerked his thumb at the monument.

"n.o.ble Macbeth lies in state within," he said. "He was an ancient king who slew his predecessor, n.o.ble Dun- can, most heinously. Lost of other people too. When he took the throne he promised he'd be nice to his sub- jects, though. But the Slavic tempeiament is a strange thing. He is best remembered for his _many fine speeches, which were translated by a man named Pasternak. No- body reads them anymore."

Unger sighed and seated himself on a stair. Moore joined him. He was too cold to be insulted by the arro- gant mocking of the drunken poet.

"Back then, people used to fight wars," said Unger.

70 "I know,'" responded Moore, his fingers freezing; "Na- poleon once burnt part of this city."

Unger tipped his hat.

Moore scanned the skyline. A bewildering range of structures hedged the Square-here, bright and func- tional, a ladder-like office building composed its heights and witnessed distances, as only the planned vantages of the very new can manage; there, a day time aquarium of an agency was now a dark mirror, a place where the confidence-inspiring efficiencies of rehea.r.s.ed officials were displayed before the onlooker; and across the Square, its purged youth fully restored by shadow, a deserted onion of a cupola poked its sharp topknot after soaring vehicles, a number of which, scuttling among the star fires, were indicated even now-and Moore blew upon his fingers and jammed his hands into bis pockets.

95."Yes, nations went to war," Unger was saying. "Ar- tilleries thundered. Blood was spilled. People died. But we lived through it, crossing a shaky Shinvat word by word. Then one day there it was. Peace. It had been that way a long time before anyone noticed. We still don't know how we did it. Perpetual postponement and a short memory, I guess, as man's attention became oc- cupied twenty-four hours a day with other things. Now there is nothing left to fight over, and everyone is show- ing off the fruits of peace-because everyone has some, by the roomful. All they want. More. These things that fill the rooms, though," he mused, "and the mind- how they have proliferated! Each month's version is better than the last, in some hypersophisticated manner.

They seem to have absorbed the minds that are ab- sorbed with them. . . ."

"We could all go live in the woods," said Moore, wish- ing he had taken the time to pocket a battery crystal and a thermostat for his suit.

"We could do lots of things, and we will, eventually-I suppose. Still, I guess we could wind up in the woods, at that."

"In that case, let's go back to the Palace while there's still time. I'm fiozen."

"Why not?"

They climbed to their feet, began walking back.

"Why did you Join the Set anyhow? So you could be discontent over the centuries?"

"Nay, son," the poet clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm an audience in search of an entertainment."

It took Moore an hour to get the chill out of his bones.

"Ahem. Ahem," said the voice. "We are about to land 71 at Akwa Labs, Oahu."

The belt snaked out into Moore's lap. He snapped it tight h 96 A sudden feeling prompted him to ask: "Read me that last poem from Chisel again."

" 'Future Be Not Impatient,'" stated the voice: " 'Someday, perhaps, but not this day.

Sometime; but then, not now.

Man is a monument-making mammal.

Never ask me how.'"

He thought of Leota's description of the moon and he hated Unger for the forty-four seconds it took him to dis- embark. He was not certain why.

He stood beside Dart Nine and watched the approach of a small man wearing a smile and gay tropical cloth- ing. He shook hands automatically.

". . . Very pleased," the man named Teng was say- ing, "and glad there's not much around for you to recog- nize anymore. We've been deciding what to show you ever since Bermuda called." Moore pretended to be aware of the call. ". . . Not many people remember their employers from as far back as you do," Teng was saying.

Moore smiled and fell into step with him, heading to- ward the Processing Complex.

"Yes, I was curious," he agreed, "to see what it all looks like now. My old ofBce, my lab-"

"Gone. of course."

". . . our first chamber-tandem, with its big-nozzled in- jectors-"