by James Gunn
“I don't understand you,” Gavin said.
“Our computerized world, the method of production and distribution, the individual records essential to the system, had implicit in them the possibility of government control of the individual,” the ombudsman said calmly. “More than twenty years ago the big topic of concern was the threat to personal freedom, credit checks, government dossiers, wiretaps, police snooping, anonymous complaints ... We've done away with all that. It happened after the law-and-order riots of 1985. Purposefully, consciously, we have restrained the intrusion of computerized society into the affairs of the private citizen. The result: today everyone is free to be just as idiosyncratic, just as cantankerous, just as crazy, just as out-of-step as he wishes. But there's a price.”
“What's that?”
“He also is free to be just as criminal as he wishes. You see, we could only get personal freedom by eliminating the investigatory arms of government, and I'm here to see that they do not get reestablished, that nobody starts using against the people the information stored in the computers and their capabilities for intrusion and manipulation. We phased out the police and the courts and the prisons. In this interim period, we haven't spread the information around, but as a matter of fact anybody can get away with anything that his neighbors or his victims will allow. Oh, there still are civil trials, and we don't allow conspiracies to go unchecked. You aren't suggesting, I take it, that this hitcher was part of some conspiracy?”
Gavin shook his head. There seemed nothing else to say.
“Well, then, we are helpless to apprehend him or to punish him. In the larger sense, of course, the hitcher was enjoying his basic liberty—although, to be sure, at the expense of someone else's liberty of action and enjoyment.” The ombudsman put the tips of his fingers back together. “It is a difficult question. The act of rape might well be called an expression of existential freedom.”
The Professor had once referred, with contempt, to Guillaume Apollinaire's opinion that the Marquis de Sade was the freest man who ever lived.
The ombudsman was silent for a moment, contemplating his tented fingers. “We can, of course, try to correct the wrong done to the girl. Medical care...”
“That she's already getting.”
“We will place a hold on her credit account if it has not already been cleaned out, and we can provide some compensation for the unfortunate act committed against her and the loss she has suffered, as well as advice not to pick up hitchers. If you will have her get in touch with me....”
The account, from the appearance of Elaine's face, was no more satisfying for her than it had been for Gavin. The pinched tube jerked once more in an effort to calm her down. “That's why the monitor wanted my credit-card number, though I don't think there's any hope. Chester has done this before, and he'll do it again until he's stopped.”
“You can try yourself, when you're able,” Gavin said defensively.
“I'm not blaming you,” Elaine said. “It just hurts to have him go free like this, enjoying himself. Talk about injustice...”
“The ombudsman said, ‘Injustice endured by the individual is preferable to justice imposed by the state.’ Well,” Gavin said, getting up, “I've got to be getting back. I tried to call my parents, but they refused to answer. If you called them, I'm sure they'd come and get you.” He hesitated. “I'm sorry you had to go through this. I feel responsible for that.”
Elaine studied his face. “Don't. It was my own damn-foolishness.”
“I hope you can forget it, anyway,” Gavin said. “I hope your young man will make it up to you.”
“What young man?”
“Well, maybe he isn't young. I assumed—you know—the one you said you were interested in when I ... suggested you might be involved with my father.”
“Oh,” Elaine said, “that young man! Well, we'll have to see. What are you going to do now?”
“My plans haven't changed,” Gavin said. “I'm still heading for the West Coast. But I'm going to have to delay a week or two while I accumulate a little money. I accepted a free meal from the charity the fireperson told me about, and some clean clothes, some toilet items, and a little cash to get me through the day. Then I enrolled in the local technical institute.”
“Isn't that a comedown?” Elaine asked.
“It's just for the educational allowance,” Gavin said. “Of course, it won't hurt me to learn something about computer programming or fusion generators.”
“Fusion generators?” Elaine asked.
Into her question Gavin read a picture of stupid students tending miniature hydrogen bombs. “Only mockups,” he said.
“How's it going?” she asked.
It was an idle question, and Gavin knew it was time to leave. “They're a different breed. Very practical. Desires, but no curiosity. However, I think they can be organized...” He leaned over and removed the hairpin from the tube in Elaine's arm. It thumped triumphantly.
“Organized!” she said distantly.
“I feel an obligation to lead them toward a moral commitment,” Gavin said. “Up to the point beyond which there is no turning back.” It was true, he realized. He had never been an activist before, but now he felt a strange compulsion to convert the heathen.
“Obligation,” she muttered, trying to struggle up out of the sedation that overwhelmed her.
He bent over the bed and gently kissed her bruised lips. She would never know, but he would know, and that was enough. Her lips were pleasant, but there was no excitement. “Good-bye, Elaine,” he said, and felt a twinge of regret for what might have been.
The technical institute was situated at the edge of what had once been a military air base, and the runways still extended through tall grass and weeds and sunflowers into the remote distance like mysterious markings on a Peruvian plateau. They served no purpose any more, although occasionally a small electric helicopter landed on a pad located across the field or a large passenger ship drifted in from the east or the west.
The buildings on this side of the old field were new. The old frame structures and barracks had been pulled down over the years, and woven and prefabricated plastic buildings and domes had been erected on concrete foundations. The institute was a thoroughly modern and up-to-date facility, in keeping with the modern and up-to-date subjects taught within its walls: electricity and electronics, mechanics, plumbing, recycling and reclamation, construction, carpentry, accounting and bookkeeping, secretarial skills, data recording, computer programming and repair, cybernation maintenance, aeronautics, solar-cell construction, electrical generating, motion-picture projection, camera operation, audio recording, hydrogen-fusion operation, power broadcasting, electrical space propulsion, satellite construction and repair, telemetry, and many more. There were so many subjects because the institute taught practical application and no theory; each subject had to be approached as an isolated series of actions to be memorized.
The students were just as practical. They wore jeans and knit shirts and tennis shoes, women as well as men, and Gavin was one of them. Apparently this uniform from a few decades ago had been adopted not only by the institute but by the charity that had given Gavin his clothing. But Gavin was not one of them as they walked along the asphalt path, almost marching, toward their classes in one of the domes. He walked to one side and out of step, and listened to them talk about the kinds of jobs they would get when they were graduated and what they would do with their earnings.
“I'm going to Kansas City,” a young man said, “and get me a job in recycling. They say it's better than mining. Trash is the nation's third-largest resource.”
“I got me a job already,” a young woman said. “Foreman in a solar-cell factory in Phoenix. Gonna make a thousand a week and buy me a cottage on the Gulf of California and get me a boat.”
“Plumbing's got tradition as well as a future,” said another young man. “I got a job as an apprentice in Coffeyville, and when the old man retires, he's gonna leave me the
business. He promised. Gonna be rich.”
“Five percent of the people control ninety-five percent of the nation's wealth,” Gavin said conversationally.
The students near enough to hear looked at Gavin curiously. “Yeah,” a young woman said, “and I'm gonna be one of them.”
“She may, too, you know,” said a quiet voice beside Gavin's ear.
Gavin controlled a start. Trotting beside him was an older man. He was shaped a bit like a bird, with thin legs leading to a body bowed out in front from chin to waist; a red vest and a blue jacket were buttoned tightly across the bulge, as if to contain it. His face was like a rounded football, broadening from thinning brown hair toward bushy eyebrows and red cheeks and then tapering again to a narrow chin.
“New boy?” he said to Gavin. His blue eyes were shrewd and observant. Gavin nodded. “Old boy,” he said, gesturing toward himself. “Superintendent. Keep in touch, right?”
Gavin nodded again.
“Where'd you get idea about wealth?” the superintendent asked, elevating his eyebrows.
“Common knowledge,” Gavin said airily, unconsciously falling into the superintendent's fragmentary speech pattern. But he wondered: where had he heard it? “Common knowledge,” the Professor said once, “is another name for common ignorance.” And another time, “There are some kinds of folk knowledge which have been so often repeated that we can never now know the truth: whether coffee grounds are good or bad for kitchen drains, whether adults should or should not drink milk, whether wet feet cause colds. Along with this we can include most economic information.”
“Not true,” the superintendent was saying. “Real per-capita income doubled between thirties and seventies; doubled again since then. Portion of national income going to laboring man climbed from fifty-three percent to eighty-three percent since 1900. Since 1929 share of national income of top fifth has dropped from fifty-five percent to thirty percent, while three middle fifths improved twenty percent, and bottom fifth by five percent.”
“I don't believe it,” Gavin said.
“Facts,” the superintendent said.
“Whose facts?”
The superintendent looked at Gavin more closely. “Organizer?” he asked cheerfully. Gavin shook his head. “Revolutionary?”
“Isn't everybody?” Gavin asked.
“Not here,” the superintendent said. “Practical men and women. Know what they want. Motivated. Ambitious. Black, white, red, brown. All colors. Not sophisticated, but backbone of society. Impatient with words. Good with hands. Word of caution: don't stir up.”
Gavin gestured impatiently. “What's the use of a place like this?”
“Biggest social problem—maintenance,” the superintendent said. “Machines break down. Can't fix themselves. Yet. Biggest economic problem—opportunity. Upward mobility. Opportunity here. Right?”
Gavin shook his head. “The biggest economic problem is distribution. Nobody needs to work.”
“Not true,” the superintendent said. “For many, work is psychological necessity. Maybe for all, though not proven. All people not alike. Some prefer leisure. Others, work. Some wish to improve economic situation. Others, develop selves. Give both chance.”
“If that were so,” Gavin said, “you wouldn't have to brainwash these kids into a psychological need for material possessions. And you wouldn't have to buy their services by paying them wages while those who prefer leisure subsist on the minimum annual income.”
“People must learn what to do with leisure ... and income. In spite of improvements in income and leisure between thirties and seventies, no social harmony: racial riots, juvenile gangs, city-life decay, national morals deterioration. Socialism also effective in producing goods, but no better in creating satisfaction. So—provide opportunity for those who want it, leisure for those who don't. Let people choose between work and affluence, and freedom and necessities. Nobody starves.”
“The poor have you always with you,” Gavin said, and he remembered the Professor saying, “Of course you do. You forget the past and re-create the poor by definition.”
“Anyway,” the superintendent said, “warning: if not here as serious student, may be trouble. Students here not idle, trouble-seeking bourgeois children. Hungry, rising lower class. May not appreciate revolutionary rhetoric.”
“The biggest social problem is justice,” Gavin said with simple dignity, “and the truth is recognized by everybody.”
“Every man has own version of truth but can't force it on reality without occasionally reality biting back,” the superintendent said, and trotted away on his spindly legs, puffing like a toy steam engine.
By the time Gavin got to the classroom building, the students already were scattered to their stations. As he entered through glass doors that swung open as he approached, he saw students in open cubicles partitioned from their neighbors and facing a large cylinder that rose from floor to ceiling. At the open end of the cubicles a corridor circled the exterior wall. Each cubicle was devoted to a different subject, and each had its own special equipment and demonstration facilities, but each had a television screen set into the slight curve of the cylinder surface that formed the front wall.
In the first booth a girl was hefting a pipe wrench, and the television screen showed a real wrench turning a real nut, and then a line drawing of wrench and nut progressively unloosening and tightening. A practical voice said, “The first thing a plumber must do is be sure the water is turned off. Once this is done, he is ready to undo the affected pipes. The wrench is fitted to the nut, or to the pipe or joint, as the case may be. This is accomplished by turning the screw at the base of the jaws. Now the wrench is applied and turned by applying the appropriate amount of force to the end of the wrench—clockwise for tightening, counterclockwise for loosening. The demonstration pipe is on your right. Now adjust the wrench to the size of the joint. That's good. Turn the wrench counterclockwise. Stop! You have forgotten the first thing a plumber must do; you forgot to turn off the water...”
The young woman turned a damp face toward Gavin and grimaced. She wasn't pretty, but she had an expressive face and a lively look. Gavin smiled at her and thought that he would like to get acquainted.
The next booth seemed filled with trash, but Gavin realized almost immediately that it was only simulated trash. A voice was talking about the separation of metals by magnets, while the television set showed illustrations. The student in the cubicle watched critically as trash in the receptacles around him was emptied automatically into a large bin. From the bin it was augured into rotating drums, where cans and other metallic objects stuck to the sides while paper and food wastes continued on out the other end.
The next cubicle contained a student and a motion-picture projector and a stack of film cans. A voice was telling him to check the name of the film on the can and compare it with a list on the side of the projector, check the date and the time against his own calendar watch, open the can and check the name on the end of the film against the name on the outside of the can, and if all these checked out, insert the film into the projector with the white side of the film reel facing out.
“The projector will do the rest,” the voice said. “Sometimes there will be something that will not check out. In that case, you must know what to do. First...”
The student looked puzzled and reached toward the pill dispenser beside the television set on the forward wall. The sign above it said “Motion Picture Projection, Lesson Number Five.”
The cubicles became more complicated as Gavin moved farther around the corridor: computer maintenance had a real desk-top console, secretarial training featured a voicewriter which printed the words spoken into it on the television screen and corrected the student's pronunciation, solar-cell construction and molecular circuits, household wiring diagrams, stud hammers and laser saws, nuclear-fusion control...
When Gavin passed the nuclear-fusion cubicle, he heard a voice saying, “The satellite is now an expanding ball of
flame composed of hydrogen and helium and a lot of metallic atoms slightly contaminated with carbon compounds.” The television screen was a mass of fire and hurtling objects.
The console in front of the student rippled with blinking lights and then turned dark. “Now,” the voice said, “let us begin again. Ordinarily the fusion generator will function perfectly without human supervision. Perhaps once in ten years...”
The next cubicle was labeled “Computer Programming.” It contained a keyboard, a voicewriter, a chair, and the ubiquitous television screen. The chair was empty. Gavin sat down in it, and the screen lit up with kaleidoscopic patterns.
“I am a Mark Seven computer instructor,” a speaker said, “and this is computer programming. Please place your identity card on the reading plate, and take one of the pills marked ‘Computer Programming, Lesson Number One.'”
Gavin took one of the pills and stuck it in a pocket.
“My identity card is lost and has not yet been replaced. My name is Tom Gavin. I just enrolled.”
“Very well, Tom,” the voice said. “You must take the pill, you know. It won't do you any good in your pocket.”
Damn! Gavin thought. Big Brother, for sure. He took the pill out of his pocket and swallowed it. It probably wouldn't do him any good, but it shouldn't do him any harm.
“Now,” the voice said, “this is a picture of a modern electronic computer.” The kaleidoscope patterns settled into the picture of a rectangular machine about four feet tall, judging from the height of the woman beside it. “As a programmer, you will not ordinarily be relating to the computer directly. Most of your work will be at a remote station much like the one you have before you now. In order to become a skillful programmer, you must become familiar with your Mark Two keyboard and your Mark Three voicewriter. In the process...”
