Anticipations

by Christopher Priest

  “That is one great attraction of our ancient system. It is diffusive and not profit-cumulative.”

  Maine gave up for a moment, and took a deep swig of the wine. “May I ask if you got a prediction on our little meeting and how it turned out, Mr Maine?” Li Kwang asked.

  “Well, you know this prototype is rather cumbersome; we didn’t want to bring it on the train, so we’ve left it in Peking for the time being. Eventually, we hope to get the production model down to the size of a small radio. But I’m sure it would have said, ‘Persistence needed, do not yield to impatience.’ ” Both men laughed.

  “In the circumstances, I consulted the sticks to see how I ought to conduct our discussion,” said Li Kwang. “My six sticks which I drew gave me the two trigrams of the Khien hexagram. Let me show you with match sticks.”

  He drew a box of matches from his gown and from it extracted six purple matches with yellow heads. He lined them up neatly together, parallel and not touching.

  “There you are, the Khien hexagram. Six long sticks. No need to break a single match.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It symbolizes a lot of things. This undivided stick being lowest represents a dragon hidden. That is to say, it is not a time for activity. Maybe that signifies my coming to Chin Hsiang for a bit of a rest.”

  “Go on.”

  “I should also say that the whole hexagram represents some great originating power from heaven. That surely indicates that you are being considered, having arrived from space. Dragons also represent great men, and this second line shows there is an advantage in our meeting. The third line is difficult and vague. It could indicate that much talk goes on over the day and that by evening apprehension remains. Taken in conjunction with what follows, it indicates that I should avoid what is error in my eyes. And so on . . . The dragon goes beyond the proper limits.”

  “Is that dragon you or me?”

  “It could be me. If I behave properly in respect to the demands made on me, then a proper state of equipoise and fortune will be reached. That is a reference to your request to sell your machine here, of course.”

  Maine clenched his fists together. He longed to sweep the feeble little sticks away. But at that moment, a servant entered the room and announced that a light meal was served.

  Li Kwang would talk only on general topics during the meal. He was smiling and polite, and received without emotion the toned-down version Felicity gave him of Shi Tok’s behaviour on Fragrance.

  “He sent you one of his paintings, father,” Felicity said. She produced it. It was one of the oblongs of garsh; a band of an intermediate brown had been painted across it. “Shi Tok says it is called The Benefits of a Fast-Paced Sleep.”

  For a long moment, Li Kwang studied the plaque. “I shall look at it later and derive benefit from it,” he said. Then he went on placidly eating his rice.

  When they reassembled after lunch, Maine was feeling desperate.

  “May I say, sir, that I was asked to come and speak to you because naturally my corporation wants to know the size of their market before investing their capital. I was not happy to represent them in such a matter. My strong feeling is that we should now shelve this discussion, because it is premature. If you will permit, I should like to come back in, say, a couple of years, when we have a PM model which will impress you more than anything I can say.”

  “Since you are frank with me, I will be frank with you. I will speak as your friend and as Felicity’s father. It is not your machine to which there is a fundamental objection, but to the thinking behind it.”

  “But you do not yet know how reliable it can be, whereas—forgive my saying this—you demonstrated the vagueness of the I Ching just before lunch.”

  Li Kwang bowed his head. “My daughter will excuse me if I make a philosophical point. Ultimately, it does not matter whether or not the Book of Changes is ‘true’ in any empirical sense. Those who consult it value the way the book speaks to the older, less logical areas of the mind. It is a map to behaviour, not behaviour itself. Whereas you are producing, or trying to, a behaviour substitute. Further, it does not matter whether our map is ‘truthful’ or not since, if all accept the co-ordinates, then the map becomes reliable through general concurrence.”

  “Are you saying that if the map is inaccurate and leads you to fall into a ditch, you will all pretend there is no ditch?”

  “No. I am saying that if all agree to believe in a certain god, then his power over men’s minds is the same whether he exists or not. We do not believe in a god, but we have a belief in belief itself. That remains comfortably constant. Whereas you would be perpetually altering your procedures, adding new scraps of knowledge, new theories of chance . . .”

  “Sir, that’s not a valid objection. It simply means that new models would be needed from time to time—to the benefit of our clients, our shareholders, and the corporation. I hope your fundamental objection is not that we shall make money?”

  “That is part of my objection, yes. All over America, to this very day, you still come on piles of old scrap automobiles or washing machines. And the useless motorways, mile after mile. All obsolete technology that exploited people in various ways to benefit corporations. In the World State, we plan to live in poverty, as China has always done. There will be no room for extravagant gadgets.”

  Clutching his head, Maine groaned. “You mean you’re actually legislating for poverty! You’ll have a world full of peasants in one generation . . .”

  “Ah, but in the second generation, we can build from a position of equality.”

  “You’ll drive out all the initiative to the zeepees. There will be nobody to build for you.”

  “I’m sure you know the answer to that, Mr Maine. We shall build for ourselves. Nobody has ever helped us, and nobody has to help us now. Western know-how will be very welcome—but it will have to concentrate on the things that are real, and not on illusions.”

  “You are looking at all this from a very Chinese point of view.”

  “In case you think I am indulging in an idle East-West hassle, let me say that you could easily come to appreciate that point of view yourself. You admit that your attitude to life is not your firm’s. One understands that you personally are not exploitive or aggressive, if I may say so—although you are a unit of an exploitive and aggressive society. I read in you characteristics of humility and endurance which would find ready welcome here. You should not waste them on a corporation which battens on your talents while secretly despising you.”

  Maine stood up. “Sir, I have taken up too much of your time. I can see that you are dead set against my invention and the capitalist society. I will report what you say to my managing director when I get home.”

  “As you will. Can the lin tell you a pleasant story before we part?”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” He turned and left the room, marched out of the front door, through the yard, and into the road. The rain had stopped and the late afternoon sun shone brightly. He walked briskly to the square. As he went, he heard running steps behind him. Presently, Felicity caught up with him and took his arm.

  “Oh, Edward, father has made you angry! I’m so sorry! He didn’t say a definite No. You should have discussed longer with him and reached an accommodation.”

  “I’m sorry, Felicity, I don’t want to talk about it. Of all the stubborn and difficult old—oh, I know it wasn’t up to him personally. He was just speaking as a Minister. Jees, how hidebound can you get? This is just too difficult to believe, Felicity. I mean even fifty years ago I might have expected to meet up with such awful anti-Western nonsense . . . and all that old crap about the mystique of China . . . China! What’s so special about China? How’s it any different from America?”

  “Some say that the Americans raped their continent, whereas we have always had to serve or be raped by ours.”

  “Whose side are you on?” he asked, and then broke into angry laughter. “Let’s get away for a while.
My head’s bursting. Let’s go and look at the sea.”

  “It’s farther than you think. It may be dark before we get there.”

  “Stop talking in that defeatist Chinese fashion. Let’s go.” They took the ochre-walled lane down from the square, and came along by one of the canals. Then the track took them away among the fields. They climbed a hill where slack-eyed peasant women walked home pushing babies and wood on the handlebars of their bicycles. Where merging tracks joined, an aged man sat by a small locker on wheels, a paper umbrella above his head. Felicity bought two ice creams from him, but Edward was nervous of his and threw it away.

  As they climbed the slope, planting their feet firmly on the well-trodden ochre soil, Edward said, “You know what will happen? I can predict quite easily. In a way, your father’s view makes sense; I have to admit it. His is basically the view of conservative people everywhere. But, pushed to its logical conclusion, such a view stifles initiative. The World State will kill initiative.”

  “End of Renaissance?”

  “Very definitely. China never had a renaissance, I gather?”

  “We had a revolution.”

  “Maybe your renaissance is to come . . . What is going to happen is that more and more positive-thinking people will migrate to the zeepees. And from there they will be driven outwards, to look for new fields to explore.”

  There was a small silence. Then she said, “My father is not a fool. He knows that what you call positive-thinking people always move outwards. He relies on that.”

  “He has a funny way of showing it.”

  “He has the only way of showing it. Men have dreamed of a World State for centuries. Now it is coming. It must have time to settle down, to get into working order. For a while, it needs stasis rather than progress. How can you achieve that without smothering the progressives? Why, by driving them out. They’ll survive and profit by isolation.”

  “Like little city states,” he said. Irreconcilable points of view existed and were necessary: maybe what was unnecessary was that either side should lose by the conflict.

  Their way was downhill now, and the sea glittered through spring foliage. As they trotted forward, they lost the sun behind the shoulder of the hill to their rear. The track took them round a copse of flowering tung trees, and the ocean stretched ahead.

  On it were three sailing ships, their sails still tinged with sunset pink, although the water was grey.

  “Oh, that looks so wonderful!” Felicity cried. “That’s what we came to Earth for!”

  “Better than your artificial oceans?” He took her slender arm.

  “Yes, and those are the automated windjammers I told you about.”

  He counted the masts. Five masts apiece, most of the canvas out to catch the evening breeze.

  “Heading for Shanghai or the ports of the Yellow Sea,” she said.

  They stood and looked at each other as the dark came on.

  “Do you think your father understands as much as you claim he does—that Western ideas are vitally necessary to mankind?”

  “I’m sure he read it in his Khien hexagram. It is a fundamental truth that most wise people have always realized: East and West are necessary to each other, like yin and yang.”

  “Now you are speaking metaphorically.”

  She shook her head. “No, I was speaking personally, if you must know.”

  They lay down together on the edge of the cliff, and dark came on.

  Out to sea, the sailing ships faded away, heading for unknown harbours. Overhead, as the sky darkened, the stars began to spread. Venus stood out sharply, and then the familiar constellations. But far eclipsing them was a great halo going clear into distance, comprising hundreds of brilliant points of light. The darker the sky grew, the more brightly the Zodiacal Planets shone, ringing in the Earth.

  The World State would come into being. Every night, the eyes of its citizens would be directed upwards, above the hayricks and the sullen chimney-tops.

  Winner of the British Science Fiction Award, Christopher Priest has contributed to such magazines as New Scientist, Penthouse, and Cosmopolitan and is the author of four novels, the latest The Perfect Lover. Mr. Priest lives in London.

  THE PERFECT LOVER

  Christopher Priest

  A novel set in a futuristic utopia

  It is 1985. The Wessex project, a privately funded scientific experiment, discovers a method of transporting the collective unconscious of some of England’s most brilliant minds into an illusory and ideal society. The object: to gather information vital to our survival on earth. But in the process power, deception, and love join to jeopardize this philanthropic program. Paul Mason makes Julia a slave to his love and plots to control the sunny island utopia. David Harkman discovers a yellowing scrap of newsprint that is a historical time-bomb for the imagined world. And Julia Stretton, escaping from her ruined life in the real world, thrives in this magical place, which, until the arrival of a disastrous agent, seemed to be her “perfect lover”.