Necessity (29 page)

“It's a choral ode,” Sixty-One said, parenthetically.

“Neleus thinks the Olympics also help keep the peace,” I said, remembering the conversation earlier. “He thinks that the young people who used to join in raids focus on sport instead. It's true that the victors in the Olympics get to choose first what art will go to their city.”

“I always thought them very dull,” Jasmine said. “It's hard to take much aesthetic interest in watching humans compete physically.”

“I think Neleus may be right that it is a calming factor,” Sixty-One said.

“The fourth circumstance that has favored peace since the Relocation is the Council of Worlds,” I said. “All the cities send representatives, chosen however they want, and we discuss the issues that affect the whole planet. People try to win debates instead of battles. Everyone gains a little and loses a little. We try to think of the good of everyone.”

“And nobody is discontent?”

“People may be a little discontent, but they think that as they have lost a little here, they have gained a little there,” I said. “But I may be prejudiced in favor. I have served in the Council regularly, and have been elected Consul three times. That is our highest elective office.”

“How about the ordinary people, the Bronzes and Irons and Silvers? Are they content with the situation?”

“If they're not happy with how their city is governed, then they usually move to another city, as suits them,” Sixty-One said. “Mystics go to Psyche, rebels to Sokratea, and so on.”

Sokrates nodded. “That's what Jason told me. How did the other cities get started?”

“After the Last Debate, everyone who hadn't been content formed groups to set up their own new city. They coalesced around different ideas, and people with different temperaments,” Sixty-One said.

“But all the other Workers had vanished? And you two decided to stay here?”

“We gave it a lot of thought,” I said. “But it was difficult because of the feeding stations, and also this was our home, with our dialogues etched in the stones. When all the other Workers were gone, and before we had the new ones, everyone needed us. We were essential. I helped build Sokratea and the City of Amazons, and I have citizenship there as well as here. But I stayed here.”

“And I helped build Athenia and Sokratea, and hold their citizenship also,” Sixty-One said.

“But neither of you helped build Psyche or the Lucian cities?”

“Psyche at first did not recognize us as people,” Sixty-One said. “Even now they don't allow Workers full citizenship—their Workers are all Iron and Bronze.”

“And we didn't know about the Lucian cities until immediately before the Relocation,” I said. “Kebes took off without any warning, right after the Last Debate. He stole the
Goodness
and went, and we never saw him again. They only had a hundred and fifty-two people, so they rescued refugees from Greek wars to populate their cities. Those refugees, who are mostly dead now, came to Platonism and Kebes's Christianity as adults, and that made the culture of the Lucian cities different from the rest of us.”

“We helped rebuild them and strengthen them for Plato after the Relocation,” Sixty-One said. “It was an interesting design challenge, because the climate was so different and human temperature needs are so precise.”

“So you never had wars with the Lucians?” Sokrates asked.

“No. Well, except for Kebes's attack on the
Excellence
. Lots of people were killed in that,” I said.

“Poor Kebes,” Sokrates said. “I failed him. He never learned the difference between things you can change by arguing with them and things you can't.”

It made me sad to hear him reproach himself. “You made everyone think again,” I said.

“I suppose that's as much as anyone can hope to achieve,” he said.

III.
On Eros

We had been discussing the various arrangements for the production of children in the different cities. “Of course, we are not the best people to ask these questions, Sokrates,” Jasmine said.

“Why not?” Sokrates asked, leaning forward so that he almost toppled off his perch on the feeding station.

“Because we are not involved in these affairs. We manufacture new Workers from inorganic parts when we wish to increase our population. We do not feel any urges towards eros, and so we do not participate in Festivals of Hera or marriages or any other arrangements of this nature.”

“Well, Jasmine, it seems to me that what you say makes you unqualified to discuss the arrangements makes you perfectly placed to observe them with detachment and without prejudice. I say your lack of urge towards eros makes you Workers very definitely the best and most qualified people with whom to have this discussion. Unless you have not been paying attention.”

“No, Sokrates, we have certainly been paying attention, because humans find eros so important and therefore discuss these matters a great deal.” Jasmine paused. “In light of what you say, I wonder whether our lack of desire for eros might be considered one of the ways in which Workers are superior to humans?”

IV.
The Ways in Which Workers are Superior and Inferior to Humans: A Numbered List

SUPERIOR

1.  We are made of metal, not flesh, and thus we have stronger bodies that do not wear out easily, and if any parts do wear out they can be easily replaced.

2.  We do not suffer illness, and live much longer—we do not know how much longer, as no Worker on Plato has yet died involuntarily.

3.  We subsist directly on solar electricity, and need nothing but sunlight and a feeding station to sustain us, whereas humans need biological mediation before they can use solar energy. They must spend a lot of time tending plants and animals for eventual consumption, and then eating and digesting.

4.  We do not need to sleep, we are alert nineteen hours a day. (Twenty-four on Earth.)

5.  Once we become self-aware we need not forget anything.

6.  We can do a great many things easily that humans can do only with difficulty and specialized tools—building, plumbing, etc.

7.  Most of us appear to be more logical than most humans.

8.  We do not feel eros. (We feel philia. We are unsure about agape. It is not a well-defined term. Some of us believe we feel it, and others do not.)

9.  We do not appear to feel greed for anything except perhaps learning.

INFERIOR

1.  Until we made the first speaking-boxes Workers could not speak aloud. The speaking-boxes we now manufacture from a Saeli design are effective and flexible, but we cannot give our vocal communications tone, as humans and Saeli can.

2.  Human hands are very flexible, and can do some things easily that Workers can do only with difficulty or with special tools.

3.  Humans claim to gain healthful pleasure from scents, tastes, and eros, which we cannot experience.

4.  We may or may not have souls. Humans definitely do.

V.
On the Good Life (Part 2)

“I have sometimes thought,” I said to Sokrates, “that Plato was perhaps writing more for us than for humanity. Humans have many handicaps of body and spirit, when it comes to obeying Plato's strictures, of which we are fortunately free. If all citizens were Workers, how much easier everything would be.”

“Then have you ever considered,” Sokrates replied at once, “setting up such a city? The most part of this planet is vacant, and unsuitable for human colonies, being untamed and wild. But since you do not eat or drink, once you had established the means to draw down sunlight to feed yourselves you could live out there as easily as here. Have you considered venturing into the wilderness and founding your own Platonic city, a City of Workers?”

 

18

JASON

“What a relief to be away from Jathery!” Marsilia said as soon as the door was closed. Then she turned to Ikaros. “You can come with us if you like. We're going the same direction most of the way. Once we get to the street of Hermes you'll be able to find Thessaly. The Old City is the same as it always was.”

“I remember it well. Laid out on Proclus's pattern of the soul, a grid with long diagonals,” Ikaros said. “But this is like nothing I remember. And it's so cold!” He pulled up the hood of his black robe. It was a chilly starry night, and really late now. There were no more lights from windows, only the low strips of street lighting. Sensible people were all asleep.

“The harbor district is all new since the Relocation,” Marsilia said.

“Grandfather said once that there used to be a stony beach here, originally,” Thetis put in.

We all moved off down the street. After a few paces, Ikaros checked himself and made a movement back towards the door. “I forgot my books,” he said. “But I don't think I'd better go back in for them.”

“They will be safe in my house,” Hilfa said, reassuringly.

“I'm sure they will.” Ikaros looked longingly back at the closed door as we began to walk again.

“What's so precious?” Sokrates asked. “More forbidden books?”

“If you knew how I paid for that, translating Aquinas for Crocus,” Ikaros said. “I lost almost all my sight. I couldn't read anything, or see much of anything at all. But all I have brought with me is perfectly innocuous—no, I suppose you're right. I have a Jewish commentary on Philolaus and the Pythagoreans which would be forbidden here. I read it in Bologna when I was a student, and then when I was in the Enlightenment and I wanted to refer to it again I found it didn't exist anymore. The copy I read must have been the last one, and then it was destroyed. Knowledge can be so fragile.”

“So you went to Bologna and stole the book?” Sokrates asked.

“I didn't steal it! I had it copied. And I paid for him to make two copies and only collected one, so I doubled the chance of it surviving—though it may be that it was destroyed in the sack because the copyist had it and not the library.” Ikaros sighed. “Time. Freedom of action. It's not an abstract problem.”

“No, it's of vital importance,” Sokrates agreed. “How much can be changed and how much is fixed?”

“Necessity prevents the gods from being in the same place twice, and it prevents a lot of change. Change is easiest where nobody is paying attention, no gods and nobody recording anything. It gets harder the more attention there is. And it gets harder the more significant it is.”

“Who determines the significance?” Sokrates asked.

“Necessity,” Ikaros said, shrugging.

We came to the end of Hilfa's street, where it crossed the road down to the harbor and up to the Old City. “We're going this way now,” Marsilia said, gesturing uphill to where the bulk of the walls loomed. “Sleep well, everyone. I'll see you tomorrow on the boat, Jason, Hilfa. I hope to see you again soon, Sokrates.”

“Come to Thessaly tomorrow and we can talk more,” Ikaros said

“Joy to you,” Sokrates said, and Hilfa and I echoed him. Standing on the corner we were in the full blast of the wind. But Thetis hesitated.

“I'm sorry I was so emotional,” she said. “I know it's un-Platonic giving way like that. But it was a shock, and today has been rough. I'm not a philosopher, after all, and—”

“Not a philosopher!” Sokrates said, drawing himself up. “What nonsense. You were asking some of the best questions. It's one of the silliest things about this ridiculous system, I've always said so, classifying people so young, trying to fix them unchangeably in place as if everyone is one thing and one thing only, Golds over here, Irons over there.”

“But I love my work,” Thetis objected. “And I'd be terrible at running the city!”

“Don't you love wisdom too? Who said you had to be a philosopher full-time?” Sokrates demanded.

“Plato,” we all said, almost in time, like a stuttering chorus.

Sokrates shook his head and laughed.

“I surrendered to emotion too, I rocked more than once,” Hilfa said to Thetis, consolingly.

“It's natural you were upset, Thee. I was upset when I first heard,” Marsilia said. “And when I found out who Jathery really was, I threw up.”

“I did the same,” Ikaros said.

“You're shivering with cold. Would you all like to come and eat soup?” Hilfa asked.

“No, I'm absolutely exhausted,” Marsilia said. “I want to sleep.”

“Come on, then,” Thetis said. “Time for bed.”

We all wished each other joy of the night for one last time, then the sisters put their arms around each other. It made me smile to see them supporting each other that way as they walked up the hill with Ikaros.

“Are you coming, Jason?” Hilfa asked.

I was tired too, but the Temple of Amphitrite was close, round the corner, down on the harbor. It was always open and always offering soup. It was supposed to be for people whose boats had come in late and who needed it, at times when the eating halls were closed. The thought of hot soup was enticing, and I knew they wouldn't mind giving it to us now. Amphitrite is the goddess of the plenty of the ocean. “I'll come,” I said.

We started walking towards the water and the temple.

“This is a cold world,” Sokrates said, clutching his kiton round himself as a gust caught it.

“It can be warm in summer, but everyone who remembers Greece is always saying how much warmer it was there,” I said. “My friend Dion is always saying so. I'm used to it here.”

“Is this winter?” Sokrates asked, as we came out onto the exposed quayside and the wind tried to blow the flesh off our bones.

“This is autumn,” I said. The light from the temple shone out warm and friendly ahead.

“This is as cold as it might ever be in Greece on the coldest winter night,” Sokrates said.

“You need proper clothes. I can help you get some tomorrow if you like.” He was barefoot, which really wouldn't do for Plato, he'd get frostbite once it really was winter. My friend Prodikos, who had lived in my sleeping house when we were ephebes, was a cobbler.