Читать книгу Enemies of the System - Brian Aldiss - Страница 6

The Unity Hotel held some two thousand guests, all of them important in their own right, back in the System. Jerezy Kordan was an historian specialising in the Classified period of pre-utopian Europe before the introduction of Biocom. He was a full Academician of the IPUS, the Institute of Pre-Utopian Studies, and likely to rise to Chancellor in time. Millia Sygiek announced herself as a commutation supervisor with System Population Mobility. As such, it was her job to travel the planets and satellites of the System, seeing that communities remained balanced in size and genetic heritage and did not degenerate; the enormous task of controlling migratory circulation fell to her and the SPM bureau.

During the afternoon, freshly arrived tourists were encouraged to walk in the safety of the grounds of the hotel, to accustom themselves to gravity, atmosphere and angstrom differences. There was much to see, including a zoo which housed some of the autochthonous species of Lysenka. Sygiek and Kordan teamed up with another couple of tourists, an exobotanist called Ian Takeido, a quiet young man who had spent most of his life in the Jovian sub-system, and Jaini Regentop, a pallid girl who was a DNA specialist on the Technoeugenics Advisory Council.

The voice of a commentator, deep and paternal, followed them as they walked down one of the broad avenues of the zoo.

‘Most of the trees on either side of you are classified as Lysenkan calamites, or horsetails. Their structure is very similar to that of trees which grew on Earth during the Carboniferous Age. Always remember that Lysenka II is only just emerging from its equivalent of the Devonian Age and entering its own Carboniferous. In other words, it is at the same stage of development as was Earth some 370 million years ago.

‘You will already have noticed the trees we call cage trees. Such phyla never developed on Earth. Each tree is in fact a small colony of trees of up to fifteen in number. Their trunks grow first outwards from a common base, then upwards. Then, as they age, the trunks curl inward again, to meet in a knot of foliage some twelve feet above the ground. So a cage is formed – hence their name.’ The voice deepened into a chuckle. ‘We like to think that this habit of unity makes the cage trees the first example of socialist unity to be found in the vegetable world on Lysenka.’

‘Charming,’ Jaini Regentop said. ‘Charming. Such a constructive little joke, too.’

That evening, the council of the Unity Hotel held a grand reception, with a banquet and many toasts and speeches, followed by dancing and a folk group brought over from Bohemia City on Titan.

Next morning, when the tourists stirred, it was to find that their living walls were blank, and their radio and vision screens not functioning. Only the internal communications of the hotel still operated. An embarrassed management council put out a hasty apology and explained why.

‘The temporary suspension of external communications will in no way affect the expedition to Dunderzee Gorge planned for today. The LDBs, your vehicles, are micro-nuclear-powered. Unfortunately, all our communications are via comsat, while most of the power is beamed from the sun Lysenka to us also by satellite; these functions are in suspension temporarily, owing to a strike at Satellite Control in Peace City. We are happy to say that the hotel has its own power store with plentiful reserves for a week. Meanwhile, we apologise for any inconvenience and the loss of your living walls. As guests will appreciate, Lysenka II is a very primitive planet, which sometimes has its effect on the natures of people. Thank you.’

The guests regarded one another unappreciatively.

‘The powermen and the satellite engineers are trying to renegotiate their contract with the Planetary Praesidium,’ Ian Takeido told Kordan and Sygiek in a low voice, over breakfast. ‘I was talking to one of the hotel’s technicians last night. It seems that because they are working on an extra-solar planet, they have to serve a full ten-year term before returning to the System. They want the term reduced to seven years.’

‘Gulfhopping is considerably expensive, you know,’ Sygiek said mildly.

‘But striking!’ Regentop exclaimed, looking over her coffee cup. ‘How primitive – Ian had to explain the term to me. I thought the penalty for striking was…’ She let her voice tail away.

‘If you want something, then you have to negotiate for it,’ said Kordan. ‘A platitude, but true.’

‘They got tired of negotiating,’ said Takeido. ‘I hope you don’t mind my speaking so freely, but they’ve been negotiating for years, to no effect.’

‘But public life is negotiation, as long as it does not interfere with the march of government,’ said Kordan. ‘The process is part of a general dialectic.’

Takeido shook his head.

‘These technicians see it as an emotional matter. What they are saying is, “Earth is our Id – we must have it or die.” ’

‘ “Id!” Another word I had never heard before,’ complained Regentop, laughing and looking anxiously at their faces.

‘As an academician, I can assure you that it is an archaic word indeed,’ said Kordan, pursing his lips. ‘And in this case almost inevitably misused.’

‘Probably declared a non-word,’ said Sygiek, regarding the others in turn. ‘In which case, it should be neither used nor misused.’ She frowned.

There was a pause. Regentop leant forward confidentially.

‘Use your authority to explain to us what “id” means, Jerezy Kordan,’ she said. ‘We are all of the elite – and out of the System. No harm can be done by a little talk here.’ She looked excited and smiled nervously at him as she spoke.

Sygiek folded her hands in her lap and looked out of the tall windows. ‘If words drop out of use, there is generally good reason for it,’ she said warningly. ‘They may serve as counters in subversive systems of thought. You understand that well, Jerezy Kordan.’

‘In this case, the explanation is only instructive,’ Kordan said placatingly. She continued to stare out of the windows. He turned to the others. ‘Id was an entity of ancient superstition, like a ghost. Briefly, long ago in the epoch before the advent of Biocom, several perverted interpretations of the nature of man flourished. Most of them assumed that man was not a rational economic being. Such may arguably have been the case before communalism provided him with the necessary rational sociopolitical framework within which he could function as a unit. “Id” was a term coined by one of those perverted interpretations – a particularly pernicious system, a blind alley of thought which, I’m happy to say, was always opposed, even by our first communist ancestors.’

He had fallen into an easy lecture style. Sygiek looked down; the others stared at his face with some admiration. Kordan continued, ‘In those bygone days, the physiological conflict between the brain, the central nervous system, and the autonomic nervous system was not understood. Misunderstanding of man’s nature inevitably arose. The physiological conflict was interpreted as psychological, as originating in some hypothetical depth of the mind. The mind was regarded as very complex, like a savage independent world almost. In this erroneous model of human physiology – that’s what “mind” really was – there was presumed to lurk in its muddy recesses various savage and socially destructive elements, waiting to overthrow reason. Those elements were bundled together under the term “ID”. It was a regressive force.’

They had finished their meal. As Takeido pushed the sofa back, he said, ‘Instructive! How did the ancient term materialise here on Lysenka II a million or more years later, do you suppose, Jerezy Kordan?’

‘As I thought I had made clear, the term was coined in some long-vanished capitalist system – in part to explain and explain away its own organisational deficiencies. If you understand the retrogressive nature of the animals on this world, then you can understand that the – er, striking technicians must have picked up the term here.’

‘They should be criticised,’ said Regentop, in a shocked voice. ‘It all sounds disgracefully non-utopian.’

Sygiek stood up and remained looking down on the others, but Takeido leaned forward, clearly wishing to carry the subject further. Clasping his hands together earnestly, he said, ‘This is most interesting, Jerezy. If you are right – and of course I don’t doubt that – then the striking technicians have it wrong. “Earth is our Id”… Lysenka is the subversive forbidden place, so it should be the id and Earth should be… I don’t know the term. I’m just a simple exobotanist.’

Regentop patted his back and smiled proudly.

‘ “Super-ego”,’ said Kordan. ‘Earth should be the super-ego.’ He laughed dismissively, disowning the term, and glanced up to see how Sygiek was taking the conversation.

‘This discussion is too self-indulgent,’ she said. ‘ “Speaking of error is itself error.” Let’s finish and get into the buses. Most of the others have already gone ahead.’

‘These old theories were nonsense, inevitably,’ Kordan said to her, taking her arm as they left the dining-room. ‘Medieval. Like alchemy.’

She regarded him with slightly raised eyebrows and a smile he had not seen before. ‘But alchemy led somewhere, Jerezy Kordan, Academician. It provided one of the foundations of scientific advancement. Whereas psychoanalysis was a dead end.’

‘Ah ha, then you are also familiar with these ancient and interdicted models. Psychoanalysis!’

‘It is part of my job to acquaint myself with what is forbidden.’

He looked searchingly at her. She met his gaze. He said nothing, and they moved out into the open. Kordan stood on the steps, breathing deeply as he looked ahead.

Buses waited like great slumbering beasts.

The exobotanist, Takeido, caught Kordan’s attention, coughed, and said apologetically, ‘It was a pleasure to listen to you talking at the breakfast table, Jerezy Kordan. Working on the Jovian moons, one is much alone. One thinks, one longs to talk…to talk about many things, such as the topics you touched on. May Jaini Regentop and I ride with you to Dunderzee?’

Kordan looked at the youth, as if thinking how young and thin he was. He watched the black eyebrows twitch nervously on Takeido’s forehead.

‘You are at liberty to choose any seat you wish in the bus,’ he said. ‘But language is much more precious and must be guarded. Better to be resolute than curious. “Resolution is the foe of deviation,” as the saying has it. I imagine that applies as much on Jupiter and Lysenka as on Earth.’

‘Of course…’ said Takeido, and swallowed.

‘Let’s get aboard the buses, then,’ said Kordan smiling. He nodded at Sygiek. She nodded contentedly back, and they walked down the steps, fully in command of their world, towards the waiting buses.

The gates in the fortified perimeter of the Unity Hotel slid open. Above them fluttered a banner with the device of the United System and the legend:

STRIVE TOWARDS THE SECOND MILLION YEARS OF BIOCOM-UNITY!

As the LDB rolled through the gateway, Sygiek noticed that she was seated next to the stocky man who had made the remarks about chessputers on the gulfhopper not experiencing glee. He nodded genially, as if they were old companions.

‘A session of idle sightseeing!’ Sygiek exclaimed to Kordan, turning away from the other man. ‘I have never done such a thing in my life, and half-doubt the propriety of it now. Days are more to be valued when fruitfully occupied.’

Kordan scrutinised her, as if trying to read her thoughts. ‘Don’t reproach yourself with such sentiments, Millia. We are not idle. We are on Lysenka to restore our energies, so that we can return to the System better equipped to work for it and to appreciate its values.’

The stocky man leant forward, clasping his hands between his knees, and said, addressing them both, ‘Don’t be too strict with yourselves, friends. Savour enjoyment as a positive force in its own right. Idleness has virtues of its own.’

‘Exactly what I meant,’ said Kordan, pleasantly. ‘Idleness restores our energies.’

The stocky man introduced himself as Vul Dulcifer 057, Chief Engineer responsible for the air-conditioning systems of Iridium, on Venus. He had a big hard head, with big hard features. Gazing out of the window at the passing scenery, he said, ‘Like everyone else, I am never idle. My work keeps me going thirteen E-hours a day, and I run various committees. “Utopia is sustained only by hard work” – I know the party slogan, don’t remind me. The System’s a machine. If a few of us have made it to this Classified planet, with all these degenerate capitalist animals running about, then we are of the elite, and I maintain that we have earned some idleness. I frankly see idleness as a just reward, not simply one more obstacle on the assault course of World Peace.’

As she watched and listened to him speaking, Sygiek thought that she and Dulcifer could never be compatible. He was as small and dark as she was tall and pale. He was thickset, with massive shoulders; his every movement expressed energy. The irises of his eyes were a dark sea-blue, rolling between black fringes of eyelash. His dark hair was sparse, and clung close to his square skull. She was aware as she watched the movements of his clearly defined lips of a disturbance within her, a disturbance chased by the reflection, ‘He regards Kordan and me merely as two standard products of the System, without minds of our own…’

‘To speak of idleness as a reward can lead swiftly to incorrect thinking, isn’t that so, Jerezy? Idleness can be no different on this planet from what it is anywhere in the System: a trap, a bait for deviationist ideas. How can those properties change? Creative idleness is a different matter.’

A hostess, rosy of cheek, with long legs and a warm smile, came down the aisle of the bus, pausing to exchange a word with everyone. She was trim in her red uniform; most of the tourists wore sloppy-maos.

‘Are you enjoying the primitive landscape?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t it charmingly undeveloped? What an inspiring symbol of potential.’

‘Yes,’ said Dulcifer. ‘And at the same time we’re exercising our minds like good utopianists with an argument about the nature of idleness.’

Takeido and Regentop had been listening from the seat in front. The former turned and said to Dulcifer, ‘You seem to lack a little data, utopianist. You see, idleness is a physiological malfunction. It’s mistaken to treat it as a quality of mind, when injections can cure it as soon as it manifests itself.’

As he spoke, he kept glancing at Kordan to see how he was taking this speech.

A bureaucrat by the name of Georg Morits leant across the aisle and said vehemently, ‘You’re right there, but let me remind you that idleness is still sometimes manifested as a mental quality in unfortunate throw-backs to homo sapiens. I know. I have to deal with quite a few committals of that sort of person, in my line of business. I’m in an office in Moscow, you know. The city of cities.’ They did know. This dull person had been boasting during the banquet of how beautiful it was in Moscow, an old city which had been the capital of the first communist state and many times rebuilt. ‘You can be legally charged with being a homo sapiens, you know. It’s in the statute banks now.’

‘Not on Venus, it isn’t,’ said Dulcifer, sturdily. ‘That’s like charging an animal with the offence of being an animal.’

They made no response to that. They knew all about Venus, and the devolutionary tendencies of Iridium City.

‘We are straying from the point. If I could remind you of the historical background to this argument –’ Kordan began; but Sygiek cut him off, saying, ‘Shall we just forget this silly discussion?’

Kordan looked hurt, but Dulcifer said, smiling to remove the sting from his remark, ‘You are too repressive for vacation-time, Utopianist Millia Sygiek! I’d like to hear what your companion was going to say. Frankly, scenery bores me – but I’ve never lost interest in my fellow human beings.’

Warmth rose in Sygiek’s cheeks. She turned a gaze on him which would have melted iridium but she said nothing.

‘I was merely going to say – for the sake of the historical record – that those early genetic engineers who established homo uniformis, Man Alike Throughout, were the –’

‘Forgive me, Academician Kordan, but I am in technoeugenics, working on the Central Council,’ said Jaini Regentop, giving him her polite smile, ‘and you are not correct in your phraseology. Those genetic engineers were merely instruments of change in the great progression from homo sapiens to homo uniformis; they took orders. First had to come the immortal work of physiologists and the great endotomists – ’

‘Jaini, you should not interrupt Jerezy Kordan,’ said Takeido. ‘He is an Academician.’

‘Then he will understand. Between them,’ said Regentop, adopting something of Kordan’s lecturing manner, and addressing her remarks mainly to him, ‘the endotomists established the fact that man’s physiological structure comprised three governance systems which were in conflict. Owing to the rapid evolutionary development of man from animal, those governance systems were not entirely compatible. We might in the same way complain of a machine that it was faulty because it contained too much wiring. The problem was one of efficiency.’

Kordan nodded and looked bored, but Regentop pressed on.

‘The great endotomists and physiologists developed a method whereby those governance systems could be developed into one harmonious super-system. The three governance systems I refer to, by the way, were known as Central Nervous System, primarily a motor system, Autonomic Nervous System, primarily a sensual system, and Neocortex, primarily a thought system.

‘To develop this more reliable super-system, the bio-shunt was introduced. As you probably know, the bio-shunt – there’s been a lot of talk about it in this anniversary year – is an in-built processor which phases out much of the activity of the old autonomic nervous system or renders it subject to the direct control of the thought system. An obvious example is the penile erection, once an involuntary act.

‘I frequently impress on my classes that the bio-shunt is the very basis of our great utopia. It has banished the emotional problems which always plagued homo sapiens. Wars, religions, romantic love, mental illness – all manifestations of outmoded physiological systems.’

‘This is what I mentioned earlier, Millia,’ Kordan said heavily to Sygiek. ‘Please continue, Jaini Regentop, if you so wish. You express yourself well.’

She nodded in humility. ‘It is my duty to express myself well when speaking of so supreme an achievement. Rationality was something poor homo sapiens could never achieve. He was divided against himself physiologically. Therefore he was also divided against himself mentally and socially and politically and – well, in every way conceivable. He could not devise a stable society as we have done. Division was his lot.’

Her voice took on a quieter note. ‘Division was his lot. Yet sapiens had vision, too. Yes, he even visualised Utopia, the perfect place.

‘And, in an ironic way, he achieved Utopia in the end, though it meant his extinction. When his physiotechnicians and early endotomists invented the whole principle of Biological Communism – the theory behind the bio-shunt itself – then it became possible to rationalise the inharmonious governance systems genetically, passing on the improvement to succeeding generations. Through chromosome microsurgery, sapiens did away with all manner of systemic weakness – thus eliminating himself and ushering in a virtual new race. A race without absurd evolutionary flaws. A race truly capable of establishing Utopia. In a word, us. Homo uniformis, Man Alike Throughout.’

They regarded each other’s faces, smiling reflectively.

‘And what has this ancient tale to do with idleness, except that it is itself an idle tale by now?’ asked Dulcifer.

‘It’s the birth tale of the World State, no less,’ said Sygiek, frowning.

‘Jaini Regentop has just explained,’ Takeido said to Dulcifer. ‘Idleness was an old sapiens weakness. It sprang from a lack of purpose, no doubt – from internal confusion. There’s no physiological reason for idleness in these enlightened days, utopianist. We’ve conquered it.’

Dulcifer scratched his head. He laughed. ‘You’re a bit young for a conqueror!’

Takeido slipped back into his seat.

‘There’s a Museum of Homo Sapiens in Moscow,’ said Georg Morits, adding confidentially, ‘they were quite advanced for primitives, you know – even had a limited form of space travel – the principles of which were invented in Moscow. I can tell you such things, since you are of the elite, and not of the ignorant. You appreciate them. Ah, it’s good to talk among equals.’