Worlds (14 page)

Surprise, Benny showed some common sense.

I turned in my last paper, comparing the evolution of Earthbound Devonites with those in orbit, and set about the serious business of enjoying New York for a few days. I met Benny at his apartment.

He’d finished up his classwork a few days earlier. When I went into his room I was surprised, and pleased, to see the drawing table unfolded, and several of his street scenes in a stack, matted and ready for display. On the board, he’d just started inking in a drawing of the old Flatiron Building, with sketches and flat photos of it pinned to the wall in front of the table.

I congratulated him on his industry and he mumbled something about taking my advice. It was hard to hold a natural conversation there, knowing that everything was being monitored by James or Will or the FBI or the landlord.

Outside, leaning into the wind as we hurried toward the subway, he explained: “If I do have to drop out of sight, I’ll need money. Can’t just buy a ticket to South Carolina and expect not to be followed. I can endure a certain amount of humiliation, to save my skin.”

“You have a plan?”

“Several. Most likely, I’ll leave all of my things here,
just take a book bag, go down to Penn and step on the tube to Los Angeles. Then go to Las Vegas by way of Denver. If I time it right, the whole thing will be less than two hours. In Vegas I can get a laundered identity for ten or twelve thousand bucks. Birth records, school, past employment; everything already inserted in some state’s computers.” I’d heard of that “service.” There were thousands of nonexistent people in the United States, waiting for Nevada to supply them with bodies.

“The fingerprints won’t match, of course, but I don’t plan on getting in trouble with the law. And I won’t have any credit identity, or any relatives. But that won’t make much difference, where I’m going.”

“You sound pretty sure you will be going.”

“Seems likely.” He put his arm around me. “Though I hate… well, I’ll be enrolling in the next quarter, but that’s just to avert suspicion. Probably leave in a month or so.”

“Leaving all your
books?”

He nodded. “Everything. The rare books, I’ll be mailing to my friend, two or three a week. I don’t dare do anything that looks or sounds like packing.”

“So you’ll be gone by the time I get back?”

“Probably.” We huddled together at the subway entrance. “Don’t try to call or write. But if you can come, my friend’s farm is on Route Five, Lancaster Mills. About ten kilometers outside of town. Perkins. But make sure you aren’t followed; they’ll be missing me by then.”

“Route Five, Lancaster Mills, Perkins. I’ll get there… one of my field trips is to New Orleans; I can sneak away at the Atlanta interchange, on my way back.”

“Good. Now, shall we try the museum?”

“Just tourists.”

We went to the Museum of Modern Art, where there was an exhibit of contemporary American drawings. Benny appreciated them, but most of them left me behind. Scrawls, thumbprints, inkblots, childish doodles. I guess my taste in art is like my taste in music. Wrong century.

When I got home, there was a disturbing letter from Daniel:

Dear Marianne,

Although it would seem self-serving, I’m on the verge of asking you to cut short your year and head for the Cape
while you can still get home. A very vocal minority is urging the Coordinators to pull up stakes, stop all shuttle service until the groundhogs come to their senses.

It’s a complex situation. We do get a balance-of-payments benefit from allowing Earth tourism, but it isn’t nearly as much as normal times, since we can’t bring them up and back on top of the regular cargo.

There’s no arguing the point that groundhogs who can afford vacations in orbit are the most powerful and influential Earth citizens. The argument is over what would happen if we did pull out—would the wealthy people tend to pressure the government into offering us a better deal? Or would the reaction be anger, “Let them stew in their own juices.” The latter, I think, and I probably know groundhogs better than most.

One factor that influences the Coordinators toward moderation is the fact that you and a thousand other Worlds citizens would be stranded on Earth. (I think the actual total is about 800.) People are talking about boycotting for as long as five or even twenty years—withdrawing satellite power as well as transportation. The water situation is uncertain, but five years without imports wouldn’t pose any great danger.

At any rate, the issue comes up for referendum next Sunday. I’m almost certain it will fail. (There’s also the side issue of New New imposing its will on the other Worlds, implicitly, since most tourist traffic does go through here first. Devon’s World would probably declare war—and come kill us with kindness.) Even if the issue were only political, I’d vote in favor of continuing negotiation. And the thought of you stuck there and me stuck here is just insupportable.

Years ago I read a story about a Swiss married couple. The husband had some medical problem, asthma or something, that required them to move into the mountains. Turned out the wife’s heart wouldn’t take the altitude. So she moved back into the valley and they spent the rest of their lives looking at each other through telescopes, waving. What a horrible thought.

John sends his love. We both talk about you all the time and look forward very much to your letters. I miss you terribly.

Love,
Dan

I did feel a rather strong pull orbitwards. Mainly because Benny was no replacement for Daniel (and John, for that matter). Second because I heartily wished I had never got mixed up with James’s cabal, and would rather be forty thousand kilometers away than simply on the other side of the world. The possibility that shuttle service might be cut off ran a distant third.

I took news of the argument to Worlds Club after dinner, and for once I was the first one who had heard of it. Not the first one on Earth, though. Barry Rhodes called up the New New York Corporation at the Cape and found that only standby spaces were available from now until next Sunday.

“I’m tempted to go down there and wait,” Claire Oswald said. “I don’t fancy being a hostage here.”

Some people mumbled agreement. The club chairman, Ian Carlson, shook his head and pronounced: “The thing to do is make a reservation for the week
after
. Then cancel it and make another, a week later. The referendum won’t pass, this time.” He lowered his voice. “But withdrawal is our only weapon against them. Next month, next year… it may become more and more likely.”

I got an uncomfortable déjà vu feeling from that “our/them.” Left one cabal to slip into another? Anti-Earth sentiment always ran high at Worlds Club meetings, but with an element of banter and self-effacement Now, I could feel solidarity thickening around me. Us against them.

“I almost hate to bring it up,” Sheryl Devon said, “but we’re only looking at one side of the question. What do you think the United States is going to do when they find out about the referendum? Applaud?”

“They wouldn’t dare close the Cape,” I said. “That’s not U.S. soil. It would be an act of war.”

“They wouldn’t have to close it to cut off access,” Ian said. “Just pass a law forbidding tourism to the Worlds.”

“Turn our own weapon against us,” Claire said. “Take the choice away while most Worlds people are still against withdrawal.”

“It’s against the New Bill of Rights,” someone protested. “Article Six, Freedom of Travel.”

I knew he was wrong on that. “No, the language of the article says ‘state or foreign country.’ New New York is neither, or at least they could so claim.” That point had
come up in Lobbies class. Nobody had ever tested the distinction in court, of course, since nobody had ever been forbidden access to the Worlds. “It wouldn’t look good, though. The U.S. has made a lot of self-righteous noise about the restrictions other countries put on their citizens’ traveling into orbit—”

Claire stood up, pale. “But they could call it coercion. Say we forced them into it.”

“Say it was a temporary measure, until we came to our senses,” Ian added.

There was a quiet chuckle and Dr. Wu, a white-haired professor from Uchūden, primly hid a smile behind his hand. “Excuse me. You are not being realistic; you are not being sufficiently Machiavellian.

“You must realize that this conversation took place weeks or months ago? In the Privy Council of New New York? Decisions, that is to say, alternatives, are not put to referenda simply because of minority pressure. What your friend has written you, O’Hara, is the first visible move of a game that is more than half played. As the Lobbies must well know.”

“Would you mind elaborating?” I said.

“Simply that the Privy Council and Coordinators have determined that this action will benefit New New York, no matter what the outcome of the referendum (though they must believe it will fail) and no matter what the States’ response will be. Otherwise, they could have delayed the referendum until public opinion forced it onto the ballot.”

“How could New New benefit from having the Cape closed down?” Ian asked.

“No doubt there are others wondering that tonight. I don’t have the slightest idea,” he said carefully, and then slowly looked from wall to wall. Total silence. It had never occurred to me that this meeting room might be bugged. Me, of all people. “And, excuse me, it is naive to think that the U.S. must pass a law to restrict tourism. At any rate, such a law would not apply to us.

“The reality is this: a state of embargo already does exist between the U.S. and the Worlds. It need only be extended to the Cape, which in the eyes of international law is part of New New York. The Cape does not manufacture its own deuterium. They buy it from U.S. Steel through a
contract monitored by the American Energy Department No fuel, no flights.”

Claire’s voice was shaking. “You mean the government of New New is willing to leave us all stranded here?”

“Possibly.” Wu shrugged elaborately, an oriental marionette imitating an occidental gesture. “This is where we chose to be.”

Benny was waiting for me in my room; we had agreed that the dorm’s lack of privacy was less unsettling than the ear under his bed. That I probably had one too was something we were aware of but no longer discussed.

I’d called him from the Liffey, and he had a fresh pot of tea waiting. I used a cup to thaw out my fingers and told him about the new developments.

“‘May you live in interesting times,’” he said. “Chinese curse.”

“I feel more like cursing in American.
Damn
it. Of all the times to be going away.”

“Where will you be Sunday?”

“London. That’s Christmas Eve.”

“At least you’ll be able to follow the news.”

“But I’ll feel so isolated.” I started pacing and slopped some tea on the rug. My first thought was that that was somebody else’s problem; I only had the room for one more day. Feeling guilty, I got a washcloth and cleaned it up. “I feel isolated already,” I said to the floor. “I won’t know anybody in the class except Hawkings. And I can’t really… talk to him.” A tear surprised me. It fell on my hand still warm. I sniffed and wiped my eyes.

“Your period?” Benny said.

“I didn’t know poets could count” I threw the cloth into the washbowl and looked at myself in the mirror. People with my color eyes shouldn’t cry. They look revolting bloodshot “That’s not it. I’m a big girl, don’t let hormones boss me around.”

I stood behind him and massaged his shoulders. “I just wish… I wish I could go home for a week or two, I guess. You can’t relax on this damned planet. Everything is so complicated.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and took my hands. “I know something simple.”

“You don’t mind the period?” He’d made excuses last time.

“We’ll make it an exclamation point” I pulled his hair for that and we wound up in a tickling match.

When I came back from the john, though, I was pretty much out of the mood, depressed again. But I worked hard at it, for Benny’s sake. Besides, it’s the second best thing for cramps.

For hours I couldn’t get to sleep. My mind was whirling; I couldn’t stay on one worry for more than a few seconds, before another one would creep in.

I woke up choking. There was a puddle of sweat under my back.

“Benny!” I shook him, hard.

He came awake immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“I—I don’t know.” I was panting, stuttering; it felt like I was being garotted. “Got, take me, infirmary.” Sudden pang of nausea. I threw off the cover and staggered across the room to the washbowl. Vomited but no relief, retching. Benny draped his heavy coat over me and held my shoulders. I was trembling uncontrollably, going hot and cold in quick flashes. He turned on the light.

“We’ve got to get you dressed,” he said quietly. I could hear him dressing himself, then gathering up my clothes from yesterday. The nausea abated a little. I washed out my mouth and tried to dress.

My knees buckled while I was getting into my jeans, and I fell halfway to the floor before Benny caught me. I couldn’t do the buttons on my blouse, hands shaking so. Benny got them wrong but I wouldn’t let him start over. A feeling of absolute dread growing: I was not going to make it to the infirmary. I was going to die.

We got my boots on and Benny waited outside the stall in the john while I shuddered through a few explosive moments of diarrhea. When we got outside, the cold air revived me a bit, and I leaned on Benny as we walked the two blocks to the Student Health Service. Halfway there, it all came back at once. I panicked and ran. Benny caught up with me and we lurched on together, his hand under my arm.

Then a blur: we got into the infirmary but I fell down while he was talking to the receptionist, they carried me behind a curtain and put me on a table, I tried to answer her questions but didn’t make much sense, tried to keep my hands at my sides but they kept wandering in the air, finally my whole body was bucking in convulsions and a man came in and rolled me over and pulled down my jeans, I felt the cold hypodermic nozzle against my hip and a sharp sting when it went off. Then everything stopped, like a switch being thrown. I went limp. The man tucked my blouse back in and helped me roll over. “Rest for a while.” I stared at the ceiling and reveled in the absence of symptoms, of desperation. What was it? Food poisoning? What had I eaten that Benny hadn’t—the hot dog! On the street. Benny said they made them out of anything, carcasses of animals from the pound and the zoo. Spices covered any odd flavor. I kidded him about his weak stomach and said I liked the idea of eating hippopotamus. Not anymore. I sat up. I felt fine, just light-headed. Cotton in my ears. I watched the clock. I would look away for a long time and look back and only seconds had passed. I looked at all the bottles and instruments around the room and wished I had a book.