by James Gunn
Gavin noticed that a student who had been nodding vigorously throughout the spiel and making approving noises strode forward to place his identification card against a reading, but he was clearly a shill, and only one or two doubtful students followed.
In front of the next booth stood two heroic lucite figures of the naked human body, male and female, and between them a fat man in a white coat. The fat man looked like an obscene caricature of the kind of human ideal represented by the figures that flanked him. The sign over the booth, also in lucite, and like the figures infused with cold flame, announced: HUMAN ANATOMY AND DISSECTION.
“Learn the marvels and delights of the human body,” the fat man shouted. “A requirement for students who wish to go on into medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, and physical education, as well as altered states of consciousness, and a pleasant diversion for those who wish to astonish their friends with a scientist's knowledge of musculature, nerve stimulation, and amatory skill.”
As he spoke, the statues seemed to shift on their pedestals like alien shapechangers; their original internal flame became daylight yellow, the lucite skin disappeared, and they became articulated skeletons; when that color faded into pink, the skeletons were overlaid with muscles, and when pink became green, the body was reticulated with nerves; blue, underlaid with veins; red, with arteries; and purple, with obscenely throbbing internal organs. As the colors shifted more rapidly, the statues seemed to pulse with their own lewd life like ultimate perverts.
“Visual aids such as you see before you now make memory work easy—of course, learning pills are keyed to every lesson. And we will not depend upon models alone. We will dissect real cadavers, authentic preserved dead people, men and women. For this reason laboratory fees must be charged; bodies—particularly youthful bodies—are hard to come by. But we will have fun. When we come to reproduction"—the statues seemed to move lasciviously, and Gavin thought he saw something twisting into shape in the female figure's lower abdomen—"we will have live demonstrations as well as the opportunity for personal experimentation by lab partners, who will be appropriately and congenially paired. For only seven hundred and fifty dollars, students, you can have a great time this semester and learn something that will always be useful...”
Students rushed to the counter; anatomy was always popular.
Beyond the surgeon was an English teacher. His visual display was a large screen upon which scattered words were shaping themselves into phrases, clauses, and sentences. “Learn to read and write,” he said wistfully. He was dressed shabbily, in a kind of tweedy suit that was old twenty years ago. His hair had grown thin on top, and his face, like his clothes, drooped with the expectation of defeat.
“You think now that you will never need these skills,” he said. “Everything you will ever need to know will be available in visual form; everything you will ever need to communicate can be spoken or taped ... Not so, ladies and gentlemen. Many works of literature, many exciting—yes, even pornographic—passages have never been translated into visual form. Imagine the delight of reading Fanny Hill in the original or Justine or The Story of O! Even the best of translations leaves much to be desired; you cannot imagine, if you have never experienced it, the exquisite pleasure of summoning up your own images instead of having someone else's ideas thrust upon you.”
A single word formed upon the screen and grew into a monstrous shape. “This is a word some of you can recognize. The word is ‘you.’ You! The person to whom you are talking. And this is ‘I.’ Easy, isn't it? Now, something more difficult—a four-letter word. ‘Love.’ Put them together"—the words reappeared and swam around until they formed a straight line—"and you have a simple sentence: ‘I ... love ... you.’ A statement of delightful meaning, of infinite application.” The “I” began to caress the “you"; the “you” writhed with pleasure until the “I” concluded its performance by diving into the middle of the “o” and disappeared.
“Imagine being able to write that to your lover. Imagine the depth of the response. There are, of course, other uses. Astonish your friends by signing your name instead of presenting your identification card to an anonymous readin. Write down your thoughts where they cannot be heard; be immune to bugging and eavesdropping. Perform research into documents which few can read; read that which few can share. Secrets of a thousand sorts lie hidden in books which never have been coded into a computer...”
But nobody rushed to the English teacher's counter.
The next booth was labeled: PSYCHOLOGY. In front of the booth was a clear crystal pillar which supported a glistening, spinning apparatus; it shattered light and scattered it in beams and glitters across the wide corridor and the faces of the students who stood watching. On one side of the pillar was a dapper, youngish man with a line of smooth patter and a sleek seal look; on the other side was a slender girl with large breasts crossed by bikinistrips. Her eyes, like those of the students standing in front of the booth, were fixed upon the spinning apparatus; Gavin noticed that they did not seem to blink.
“Psychology, my friends,” said the huckster, “is the now science. Learn how to predict the behavior of others! Eminently useful in salesmanship, politics, group dynamics of all kinds, as well as personal relations.” The professor dug a knowing elbow into Gavin's ribs. “And we all want personal relations, right?
“Learn not only to predict but to influence. Once you can predict how people will behave, influence is but a small step beyond. Without your apparent intervention, people will behave as you wish them to do. On a large scale the science of psychology is applied most obviously in advertising and motivational research; on the smaller scale of the community or the group, it provides a pleasant environment for the individual who knows his subject—things happen to satisfy his or her desires.” Gavin's ribs received another blow from the psychologist's elbow. “And the satisfaction of our desires is what the game is all about, right?
“Learn not only to influence but to control. This young lady of such exquisite proportions is completely under my control. She will do whatever I command. For instance"—the elbow swung toward Gavin, but he evaded it—"I could tell Helen to go into the booth with you and make passionate love, and she would do it. Is that right, Helen?”
“Yes,” the girl said.
“Are you under my control?”
“Yes,” the girl said.
“Tell these students your name.”
“My name is Janice.”
“Helen, Janice.” The psychologist shrugged. “Have we ever met before tonight?”
“No.”
“Have you ever stripped for an audience before?”
“No.”
“I want you to remove your clothes for these wonderful people,” the psychologist said.
Automatically the girl's hands went behind her back and twisted twice. The bikinistrips fell away. Her body was more magnificent than before.
The psychologist turned toward the student audience with his hands thrown out, palms upward, in a gesture of simplicity. “These, of course, are parlor games that anyone can learn. Beyond control of the individual is the serious business of social control, of shaping an entire society into a rational, reasonable, desirable arrangement in which satisfactions are maximized and frustrations are minimized, in which such sicknesses as war, murder, and other crimes cannot exist. Skinnerism is not yet a science, ladies and gentlemen, but we are working on it.
“In addition, we will devote some of our time in this course to the study of altered states of consciousness, the proper use of drugs, and their effects. Now,” he said to the students in the same tone he had used with the still-naked girl, “you will sign up for my course. Janice will help with your enrollments.” The students lined up mechanically in front of the counter. “Cash, of course, will be accepted, as well as credit cards if they have been co-signed by your parents. Please have your identification cards ready...”
Gavin moved on. He had been too fascinated by the girl
and the psychologist to more than glance at the glittering mechanism on the pillar.
Beyond the psychology booth was a computer. A lighted panel at the top carried the printed words: COMPUTER SCIENCE. In a pleasant feminine voice the computer said, “Every student knows that the computer is the creator of our society. It has taken the drudgery out of man's life; automatically, without complaint, it performs the simplest repetitive tasks as well as the most complicated computations. It manages the economy while it economizes on management. Because of the computer, man is free to do not what he can but what he wishes.”
The computer's voice dropped an octave, became more personal, more seductive. “But you must learn to handle your computer so that your computer will produce the results you want.” The computer made it sound like a love affair. “You must know what the computer can do and what it cannot; what is simple and cheap, and what is difficult and expensive. Computer science is the essential course in the University curriculum. Learn how to talk to your computer. Learn how to obtain the exact answer by asking the exact question, not the approximate answer or even an incorrect answer by asking a careless question.”
The computer's voice rose again to the efficient and the impersonal. “A knowledge of computer science is useful to everyone. It is, however, a prerequisite to careers in business, economics, engineering, and all the sciences including chemistry and physics. Sign up for this course by placing your student identification card against the blue reading plate in the counter and your credit card against the red plate. No cash or checks, please. You may sign up for your own computer terminal by pressing the button between the two plates.
“I need not remind you how much easier and more satisfying your university life will be with your own computer terminal, providing answers as well as services, tutoring and tapes for class exercises included—this service covers all classes offeried within the University, of course—and even printed term papers for teachers barbaric enough to require such arcane skills. As a matter of fact, all courses offered within the University may be taken by computerized instruction, with the single exception of laboratory courses.
“Of course, fascinating games can be played with your own computer terminal—space war, chess, computer dating, terminalhop—as well as sending and receiving personal messages, and even prompt delivery of late-night snacks or drinks, pills or dope. No student ever again need be lonely, oppressed, or depressed. With your own computer terminal you need only describe your mood and be matched with some other student who at that very moment wants to give what you need....”
Inside the glass housings, the broad tapes turned, and on the panels the colored lights flickered like genies anxious to be liberated into the service of man, but Gavin had the uneasy feeling that it was all a fake and that somewhere some unshaven man sat in his underwear punching buttons and answering questions out of a Book of Records, an unabridged dictionary, and a tattered 1994 almanac.
The next booth spelled PHARMACY in glass tubing filled with bubbling fluids that changed colors as Gavin watched. Beneath the lettering, on a frosted screen, fullcolor pictures appeared, split, merged, and disappeared, split screen and quadruple screen, film and stills, illustrating the wonderthings a pharmacist does. But in front of the screen, tradition reigned: colored water in fancy jars, a plump, smooth-skinned man with a waxed moustache wearing a white jacket, and on a counter in front of him, a mortar and pestle, bottles of pills, liniments, and lotions, and squeezetubes of toothpaste.
His patter went back to an even older tradition, of snake oils, patent nostrums, and curealls. “Students,” he said, his moustache twitching, “this is it. This is what you've been looking for. How many times have you told yourself, ‘I don't know what is in this pill. I don't know whether this stuff has been cut or adulterated. I don't know whether I ought to take it or not.’ So you take a chance and run the risk of blindness, madness, a bummer, or even death; or you don't—and miss that great experience, that mystic high. Ladies and gentlemen, you need take those chances or miss those highs no longer. A few simple tests—easily mastered in the course I teach—can confirm or refute the claims of your dealer. Don't pay horse prices for sugar or strychnine. Don't buy poison when you are paying for peace. Don't trade a headache for an upset stomach. Don't let life give you a bummer. Don't settle for a bad trip. For only five hundred dollars, ladies and gentlemen, you can guarantee yourself a pleasant saunter through life's happy groves.
“And that isn't all, ladies and gentlemen. For that same five hundred dollars—only half a grand, students, you can't even support a modest habit for half a grand anymore—you can learn the effects of drugs upon the human metabolism and the human brain through animal and human experimentation as well as self-dosing under carefully controlled conditions. Learn what provides a superior high. Learn what kind of comedown to expect and how to ease down instead of crash. Learn how to substitute simple cheap drugs for the expensive, hard-to-get kinds. Learn your own tolerances. Each single person is unique. Each one of you responds differently to the same substances.
“Moreover, ladies and gentlemen, for that same five hundred dollars—why, you can't even bribe a local judge for five hundred dollars anymore—you can learn how to prepare your own drugs. Of course, it ain't easy to obtain the raw opium or morphine base, but we will learn how to handle the poppy from field to consumer. Some of you may wish to enter the production business yourself. We will learn how to prepare the psychedelics, the hallucinogens, the amphetamines, and the tranquilizers from simple substances you might find in your own kitchen. This course will return its initial cost many times over just in the ability to prepare your own uppers and downers.”
The pitchman put his hands on the counter and leaned forward confidentially. “You will, of course, learn how to prepare simple pharmaceuticals—aspirin, for instance, antacids, and many others—for fractions of the cost of purchasing them at your local dispensary. Need I point out the burgeoning opportunities awaiting the young man or woman in the knowledge industries, in the fields of chemical learning now just in its infancy. Learn how to prepare your own learning pills. Why, I venture to speculate, ladies and gentlemen, that not many years from now we will not even have courses like this anymore. You need only take a pill or a series of pills and you will know everything a course can teach you. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you can get in on the ground floor of that industry now. Sign up! Put down your five hundred dollars, and receive an education you can always use.”
While the students thronged to put their cards down upon the readins, the pitchman's voice dropped until Gavin could scarcely hear it. “And, for advanced students,” the pharmacy professor said, “there is an opportunity still for research in the fields of human response, ethical drugs, antibiotics, and delivery systems...”
Next to pharmacy was a booth with no one in front of it. Over the booth, in simple, handpainted letters, a sign read: PHILOSOPHY. Beside the entrance to the booth was another sign that read: ENTER FOR PERSONAL INTERVIEW.
Gavin, who had drifted past the other booths in a kind of mind-blasted euphoria, unimpressed and unmotivated, hesitated in front of this blatant disregard for the proprieties. Who was being interviewed? Who was hiring whom here? But the approach—or lack of approach—stopped Gavin long enough to think with what he had left for brains.
Eventually he realized that he was offended, but he was also intrigued—he was sufficiently intrigued that he stooped, pushed aside the bare canvas closure of the booth, and entered. He stopped just inside and blinked while his dope-dazed eyes adjusted to the dimmer interior. Finally he saw that the small space contained two ragged upholstered chairs, a floor lamp behind one of them, and between them a scarred wood coffee table on which sat a cup and an ashtray overflowing with ashes and cigarette butts. As Gavin watched, another cigarette butt was stubbed out in the heap.
“Come in, come in,” a voice said impatiently. It was a voice that had grown weary and testy trying to whip bored students alert, or
at least awake, but still a bugle of a voice which could throw words at student heads like erasers. Now the voice was irritated and highpitched, but even so it compelled attention. “You've done the Anthony-to-Cleopatra imitation. Sit down.”
The chair beneath the lamp held a man who was dressed stylishly—though not in student style—and then was careless of his appearance. He was an ordinary good-looking man who, well into middle age, no longer cared what he looked like, with graying brown hair down almost to the collar of his long-lapeled, opennecked yellow shirt and cigarette ashes dribbled down the front of his gold jerkin.
“What are you looking for?” he said to Gavin.
“What do you mean? Here?” Gavin asked.
“What do you want?” the Professor insisted.
“Maybe a course?”
“What is your goal?” the Professor boomed. His hands rested like stone paws on the arms of his chair.
“You mean now? Here? On campus? In life?”
The Professor shrugged. “On campus, in life, what does it matter? The campus is life, young man. And the goals you adopt here will never really change; they will only fade into dreams of what was or might have been.”
“I don't understand you,” Gavin said, trying to pull his head together, wondering if the hallucinogenic was affecting his hearing as well as his eyes. The Professor did have a golden aura about him, and there seemed to be an aura of ambiguity about his words, something delphic and layered and significant. But it might be the drug. The evening had been strange already, and it promised to get stranger. “This is enrollment, you know...”
“Sir,” said the Professor.
“What?”
“This is enrollment, you know—'sir.'”
“'Sir'? What do you think this is—the Army?”
“This is normal human intercourse between a teacher and a prospective student, who, if he shows promise, the ability to learn, and a proper attitude, may be accepted. It is a situation eased, rendered tolerable, and perhaps even pleasant, by a proper use of respect terms which clarify the relationship between the two. It is a modest effort which costs the student nothing if he is not insecure or neurotic, and places him in a proper social frame for learning.”
