A REASONABLE WORLD

by Damon Knight

  If the poet were alive tonight, and if he were an English speaker, what would he write? Some of his rhymes were forced, for instance “cresmes” and “moy mesmes”: he would not have done that if the language had given him a better choice. After a while he thought he saw some others that the poet might have liked. He wrote, and crossed out, and in an hour he had:

  I know the longbow by its wood,

  I know the wagon by its wheel.

  I know the hangman by his hood,

  I know the horseman by his heel.

  I know the sharper by his spiel,

  I know the bottles on the shelf.

  I know the swordsman by his steel,

  I know everything except myself.

  The more he read about Villon the more deeply interested he grew. As a young scholar, Villon had actually been proposed for a benefice and might have died a bishop; but then, as Wyndham Lewis said, “The Church would have gained a rascal and poetry would have lost a prince.” At the age of thirty-two he was arrested for a crime of which he was more or less innocent, tortured, and condemned to be “hanged and strangled.” On appeal, since the case was weak but Villon’s odor was strong, his sentence was commuted to ten years’ exile from Paris. That was the last anyone ever heard of him. Although he wrote, in The Debate of the Heart and Body of Villon, that the fault was in his stars, it was certainly his character and not mere circumstance that made him a criminal. He might have become a prelate, like many of his class at the University of Paris; instead, he chose poverty, crime, and poetry.

  11

  Stevens looked up Palladino in the net and found two books, The Optimal Society and The Myth of Money, both in Italian. As he had expected, there were not many reviews, and none by people whose names he had seen before. The books were under copyright; he paid the fees and downloaded them. Over the weekend he read them both; they were witty and surprisingly lucid, like the man himself. There was an English translation of The Optimal Society; Stevens sampled that too, and found it badly done.

  Palladino was staying with friends in a vast shabby apartment near the river. When Stevens arrived at the appointed hour, he found the professor seated at a tea table with Maria Orsi and four others: Bruno Colmari, the young man who had introduced Palladino at the lectures, an elderly couple named Lanciani who were the owners of the apartment, and a blond middle-aged woman named Carla della Seta.

  Palladino welcomed him effusively. “My dear young friend, come in. You have given us money, now let us give you tea.”

  “Since the money is worthless,” Stevens could not help saying, “I am getting the better of the bargain.”

  Palladino laughed. “Quite true! When you came in, we were just talking about this worthless money that we must have. You know, the goldsmiths used to keep gold on deposit for their customers and issue receipts for it, which the customers could use to pay their debts, and these receipts circulated like currency.

  “Well, the goldsmiths, who were now bankers whether they wanted to be or not, discovered that in any given period only a certain percentage of these receipts would be presented for payment; therefore they could issue more receipts, which would also circulate like currency even though there was no gold to back them, and by loaning these receipts they could gain interest on this imaginary gold. And so you see that all the weight of modern finance rests on a fantasy!

  “Every bank today loans more money than it actually has, and each time this imaginary money is deposited in another bank, it generates still more imaginary money. Well, all money is imaginary now, because there is nothing to back it. You cannot go to a bank or to a state treasury and redeem your money for gold or anything of value; but everyone accepts the imaginary money and therefore it is as good as if it were real. We agree to pretend that it exists, you see, and so the world goes round and everyone is happy, except those who have no money.

  “What if we gave everyone some of this imaginary money? It costs nothing to make it, since it does not exist; but then, we say, there would be too much money, and since everyone would want to spend it, the prices of goods would be driven up. Yes, and we also say that we must have new markets for the goods we produce. Only in a world where imaginary things are treated as real could we believe these two contradictory things at once.”

  “But, Professor,” said Stevens, “even if money is imaginary, isn’t it true that goods are real and that if there are fewer goods than people who want to buy them, the prices will go up?”

  “My dear friend, you are still thinking in terms of money. Without money, there will be no prices.”

  “Very good, but then how do we decide who gets my chicken, if there are five who want it?”

  Palladino beamed. “Let us have a demonstration. Let each of us put something of value on the table. Not money, and not anything of great value—just some trifle, a thing we would be willing to give away to a friend.” He looked in his pockets. “I don’t seem to have anything. Wait, here is a nail-clipper. That will do very well.” He dropped it on the table. Maria contributed a little mirror, Bruno a packet of tissues, Signora della Seta a pencil, the two Lancianis respectively a bottle of scent and a key-chain without the keys. Stevens added his Swiss Army knife.

  “Very good!” said Palladino. “Now let us say that each of us desires each of these things. But there is only one of each thing, and there are seven of us. And we have no money! What can we do? First we write our names on slips of paper.” He wrote on a pad, tore off a piece and folded it, passed the pad around. “Now, dear Rosa, may we use this bowl? Excellent.” He put the folded slips in the bowl. “Maria, will you be kind enough to draw? We will draw first for the nail-clipper.”

  Maria unfolded the slip. “Signor Kauffman.” Next the tissues, which Palladino got; the scent bottle, Bruno; Signor Lanciani got his own key-chain. Maria got the knife. The pencil went to Signora della Seta and Signora Lanciani got the mirror.

  “Now it is a rule of these demonstrations,” said Palladino jovially, “that we do not give our prizes back. Another time we may offer them again and get something else instead. But we see now, do we not, that without the use of money we can decide who is to have something each of us wants. And if we are sometimes disappointed, well, we have been disappointed before. Is your question answered?” he said to Stevens.

  “Yes, and I see that there are other ways, too—a waiting list, for example.”

  “Of course, and another way is for me to give you something just because I like you more than I like Maria. These are imperfect ways, but the money way is imperfect too, I think. Don’t you agree?”

  “I do, indeed,” said Stevens gravely. “But there is something else that disturbs me. In the moneyless society, the farmer will contribute his cows and grain, the shoemaker his shoes, and so on, and everything will come out even. But what will I contribute?”

  “What can you do? What have you done before?”

  “Nothing very useful. I have invested in stocks and in precious metals. I wrote a little poetry when I was young.”

  Palladino smiled. “Then you will contribute your poetry.”

  Stevens said, “Forgive me, but I can’t believe my poetry would be worth all those tractors and shoes.”

  Palladino leaned forward. “That is exactly the point. We don’t weigh one thing against another, we don’t assign prices or numbers. If your poetry is all you have to give, you give it. Even if you have nothing to give—if you are old and infirm, let’s say—still there are enough things to go around. You can have meat, you can have shoes. Why not? There is enough.”

  After the last lecture, when Palladino was about to leave for Naples, Stevens said to him, “Professor, perhaps while you are gone I could undertake a little organization here in Rome, collect some money, distribute pamphlets and so on?”

  “My dear friend, I would be very grateful. Bruno and Maria do what they can, but there is never enough time.”

  “And it also occurred to me, if it would not be an impertinence, I w
ould like to translate some of your works into English and French.”

  “Marvelous! Yes, by all means!” Palladino got up to embrace him and sat back, beaming.

  “And, of course, Professor, I would like something with your signature authorizing me to do these things.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  The problem was to create a cadre, a hard core of dedicated Palladinists who could then recruit others, and so on, making sure that one proof of dedication was to consist of generous contributions to the group. Stevens persuaded the Lancianis to hold weekly meetings at their apartment, where, first modestly and then with more confidence, he set forth his program.

  He also began to talk about the moneyless society whenever he met his rich friends. “But that’s fascinating!” said the dotty old Contessa di Corso. “Think of living without any money at all! I really would like to give him something, dear Peter. Who shall I write the check to?”

  “Not a check, please. As a matter of principle, Palladino does not pay taxes. He accepts only cash, which he doesn’t have to report.”

  “But they’ll put him in jail, won’t they?”

  “He thinks he could write a very good book in jail.”

  Encouraged by the success of these trial balloons, during the next few months Stevens went to the introductory lectures of an Indian guru, a self-maximization program, and a New Age chiliastic organization, and enrolled in classes at all three. The exhortations were very wearing, particularly since he was getting three kinds at once. “Why are you doing this?” Julie asked.

  “It’s very interesting.”

  And, in fact, it was. The three groups had several things in common: a charismatic leader, an efficient and cynical leadership, and a hierarchical program designed to lead the converts, by means of larger and larger promises, into paying larger and larger fees. When the converts became sufficiently indoctrinated, they indoctrinated and trained new converts in their turn, and received a portion of the new fees as their share. By degrees it was made clear to the converts that the group was the most important thing in their lives. Great attention was paid to neat appearance and dress, positive emotions and enthusiasm. By every possible means the converts were bound together and isolated from nonbelievers. The enthusiasm was infectious: Stevens found himself in a state of continual nervous excitement, and had to resort to sleeping pills.

  At the end of three months he believed he understood the dynamics of these groups sufficiently for his purposes, and he dropped out with relief. He had lost twenty pounds.

  12

  One morning in the spring of that year, Robert S. Windom’s desk computer said, “Call from Andrew Vick of Standing Wave Transportation, boss. He wants to speak to you personally.”

  “What the hell is Standing Wave?”

  “Just a moment. Standing Wave Transportation, incorporated in Delaware, a subsidiary of Transport Systems, Ltd., a British corporation. President, Laurence Hawkins; Chief Executive Officer, Douglas De Angelo.”

  “Okay. Is that a new company? I never heard of it.”

  “Date of incorporation is January 21, 2005.”

  “Standard and Poor’s rating?”

  “Triple A.”

  “See if you can find anything about them in the net.”

  “Searching. An article in Business Day, March 23, 2005.”

  “Put it on.”

  The article came up in the flatscreen. Windom scanned it quickly; it wasn’t much. “… intends to develop the so-called ‘standing wave’ system of instantaneous transportation based on the work of the Danish mathematician Olvard Torreson (d. 1989).”

  What the hell. “Okay, Benji, put him on.”

  A face appeared in the tube, young, pale, brown-haired, rather attractive. “Mr. Windom, my name is Andrew Vick; I’m an assistant to Douglas De Angelo, the CEO of Standing Wave Transportation. We’re interested in a feasibility study, and we’d like to know if your firm can devote a substantial amount of time to it beginning fairly soon.”

  “Let me find out. Benji, work schedule.” The chart came up on the flatscreen. “I have a four-week window beginning on January third. Is that what you mean by a substantial amount of time?”

  “I think it might be more like six months, but you would be the best judge of that.”

  Windom hesitated. “There are a few things we could put off, but I’d have to know more about it first.”

  “That’s satisfactory. Would it be possible for you to come and talk to Mr. De Angelo sometime this week?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Let me turn you over to my secretary.” He gave the call to the computer, then sat back a moment and thought. The computer said, “Nine-thirty June eighth, boss.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Windom, the head of the consulting firm that bore his name, was a red-haired, freckled man of forty-eight who liked cats, beer and jazz, in that order. He had been a project design supervisor with Martin Marietta until he began to feel peculiar about some of the work he was doing. The consulting firm he had founded after that was doing fairly well, although not as well as he sometimes pretended. Like other people in his profession, he worked himself too hard and sometimes felt depressed on Mondays.

  He searched Torreson and got a little more. Eight years after the mathematician’s death, his unpublished papers had been discovered in a library in Copenhagen. Among them was a solution of Schrödinger’s wave equation which made it possible to transport an object instantaneously from one location to another. This so-called “uncivilized” solution had been known and ignored for years, but Torreson had added a hint of a way to make practical use of it. An international team of physicists and engineers had taken it to the point of laboratory demonstration. It sounded crazy, but it smelled like money, and besides, he was curious.

  The reception room of Standing Wave Transportation in Newark was neat but very small. Precisely at nine-thirty, Windom was ushered into the office of Douglas De Angelo, a heavy-set man in his early fifties, with a smooth face and an easy smile. The office was also neat but small. De Angelo came around his desk to welcome the visitor, led him to a comfortable chair and sat down on the sofa opposite the coffee table. “Glad you could come, Mr. Windom. Some coffee?”

  “Yes, please.”

  De Angelo poured from the silver thermos. “Cream and sugar?”

  “No, black.”

  After a few social remarks, De Angelo said, “I suppose you know what SWT is.”

  “Just what’s been on the net. It sounds like lunacy to me.”

  “Me too. I’ve just been handed this, and I don’t understand how it works, but I’ve got people who say they do.”

  “Mr. De Angelo—”

  “Make it Doug.”

  “Okay, Doug, my field is aerospace—that’s the only kind of mass transportation there is anymore. I don’t know a thing about rolling stock, if that’s what you have in mind.”

  De Angelo looked pleased. “What made you say rolling stock?”

  “Well, it’s obvious that if you’re going to zap something across lines of latitude, you have to compensate for the differences in rotational speed—unless you’re breaking all the laws of physics, not just one or two.”

  “Good. You’re right, and I think you may be the man for us. Let me just tell you generally what we’re up against, so far as I understand it. The first thing we have to know is how many stations for a complete worldwide network, and where? The next thing—”

  Windom leaned forward. “Wait a minute. What do you mean by a complete network? Major cities, or Bent Fork, Texas?”

  “Major cities, but if the line passes through other places we’ll do traffic projections. Okay? Next thing, design of the vehicles, one kind for passenger, one or two for freight. We need to know what constraints the vehicle design puts on the standing wave transport devices and vice versa. Then there’s propulsion systems, then passenger and freight terminals, then warehousing and so on. We can�
��t move on any of that until we have a basic concept that we know we’re going to stick to. I’ll give you copies of the patents before you leave, but first, I suppose you’d like to see a demonstration?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  De Angelo took him to a small windowless room where a young woman was waiting. “Bob, this is LeAnne Bondy, she’s our demonstrator.”

  Windom said hello, but he barely glanced at the woman; his attention was on the apparatus. It was on two glass-topped tables six feet apart: each was a metal cylinder about a foot long, horizontal on a black plastic stand, with a control board attached. A hinged cap on one end of each cylinder was open. Windom had expected to see cables, but there was only an ordinary electrical cord leading from each device to a baseboard outlet. He stooped to look inside the nearest cylinder: he saw metal rings, closely spaced, and a glimpse of wiring. “How much power does this thing use?”

  “Ten watts. We could run it off penlight batteries.”

  Windom stooped further to look under the table. When he straightened up, De Angelo and Bondy were smiling. “Everybody does that,” Bondy said. “We’ve had people feeling around for mirrors, and pipes hidden in the table legs. It doesn’t make us mad, because it really does look like some kind of trick. But it isn’t, it’s real.” She picked up a small glass paperweight from the table and handed it to Windom. “Will you put that in the cylinder, please?”

  “Does it have to be this?”

  “No, it doesn’t. Anything, so long as it fits.”

  Windom put the paperweight down, pulled a notebook out of his pocket, and wrote, “I am a monkey’s uncle.” He signed his name, tore off the sheet, folded it twice, and put it in the cylinder.

  “Okay, will you verify that there’s nothing in the other cylinder?”

  Windom did so, keeping a wary eye on De Angelo and Bondy. Neither of them moved, and both of them were well out of reach of either apparatus. He felt like a fool to be so suspicious, but he knew he would feel worse if he didn’t look out for deception.