Reed Ready popped into her mind first: if it weren’t for egotistical bastards like that, feeding off of the mass frustration of people caught up in forces beyond their control, perhaps the situation could have been handled in a civilized manner.
She sighed and released the ball. Of course it wasn’t really true: the Readys of the world were only the plexus of that world’s nerves, not its chemistry; not what fired it. Indeed, perhaps things would even be worse without him: you certainly couldn’t listen to him without learning something, or argue with him without being forced to think. Which was a hundred moral light-years beyond the rabble rouser he seemed to like pretending he was. And there was a lot of potential in that: if people were forced to think, then there was always the possibility of them thinking the right way…
There was a thread she could grab hold of and hang onto. If enough minds out there had been primed—if she could just find the lever to move them in the right direction—if she could just reach enough of them—
She bit her lip, while hope and fear spun through her mind.
The Voice of Reason was a man of principles. That was the answer. The only question was: which principles?
“…The enemy of enigmas and mental enemas, the usurper of unreason, destroyer of docility. Well folks, they’ve finally done it…”
The figure in the doorway didn’t look like the one she’d seen on the pad so often these last few months. Oh, it was Reed Ready all right: there was the thinning brown hair, the furrowed forehead and drooping eyelids that had dispatched “the enemies of unreason” with such frightening regularity. But here, arrayed before her as a live human being, those same features gave a different impression. It was immense guilt and inadequacy before the world’s suffering.
“Mr. Ready?”
“Ms. Jiang.”
She was led to a vast sitting room in the old Victorian house, where a bot politely offered her a selection of refreshments, bowed deferentially and disappeared when she declined.
“They are very much like real servants, aren’t they, Ms. Jiang? So much so that it frightens me: the World Court may someday discover that we’re violating their rights too.”
Lisa restrained herself. This was Reed Ready all right. “I want to thank you for giving me your time, Mr. Ready. I realize you grant few personal audiences.”
Ready squirmed in his chair. “Not too many people have ever requested an audience the way you did, Ms. Jiang. It left me—breathless is the only way I can describe it. I decided I had to bring you here, so I could convince you in person just how wrong you are. I’m not a bigot.”
The man was shaking. He was doing his best to control himself, but the convulsions were visible beneath the tweed and the measured breathing. Like the patient endurance of injustice about to explode. Only his voice was in command; it sounded as right and confident as always.
Lisa fought to keep her own trembling invisible. “You don’t understand, Mr. Ready. I didn’t think you’re a bigot. It wasn’t my intention to make you think I believed you were.”
Ready raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “Then what, exactly, was your intention?”
She steadied herself with a breath. Here it goes. “Have you ever heard of busing?”
Ready pondered a moment. “That was a scheme used in the late twentieth century to end racial segregation in the public schools. Students were transported to schools outside of their neighborhoods in order to achieve integration of the school systems.”
To the extent that history is facts, the man did know his history, Lisa had to grant that. She nodded. “People thought busing was necessary because the neighborhoods themselves were segregated. The problem was, in the eyes of the parents, busing meant having their kids dragged off to schools many miles away. It meant losing control of their children’s education. The fact that it was often done by force, by a court order, only made it worse.
“The result was, a lot of people opposed busing—sometimes to the point of violence. But to the scheme’s proponents, the opposition was seen as pure racism; white bigots who didn’t want their children mingling with non-white children.”
She thought Ready was going to interrupt her. But he remained in his seat, listening intently, his trembling down to a thin shiver.
“The thing is, both sides were right,” she continued. “Some of the resistance was racist. And some was legitimate. Worse, no one could really separate the two anymore. And all that did was to legitimize racism; to let it hide behind real, understandable fears.”
She folded her hands on her lap. “The point is, the result of an attempt to end racism was to strengthen it. Neither the proponents nor the opponents of busing intended that result. But that’s what they got; because it was the logical consequence of their ideas and actions. Every historical analysis I’ve seen has concluded that racial prejudice lasted longer than it should have as a result of the attempts to end it by force.”
She ended the lecture there. There was no point in dragging it out further; either Ready got the message, or he never would.
Ready didn’t respond at first. Finally he asked, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to drink, Ms. Jiang? I have some very good wines.” The house bot appeared, as though a law of nature, at his side.
When the bot was gone Lisa started to say more, but Ready stopped her. “There’s no need to labor the point, Ms. Jiang. It was well made. You think what I do has the effect of legitimizing prejudice against shimps, even if I am not prejudiced myself.” His trembling had disappeared, and he was in command of himself again. He even had a little smile, a smile that made Lisa squirm inside, that suggested she’d made a fatal tactical mistake and handed Ready ultimate victory. “It is a far more flattering assessment than I get from most of my enemies.”
She sat up, hopeful for the moment again. “Then—you agree?”
Ready folded his hands across his stomach. “In theory. But your little history lesson has overlooked something; namely, that it is history.” He blinked immense eyes at her. “The analogy between racial minorities in the twentieth century and shimps in our own won’t hold up. First, the cyberlink recording you sent me aside, we’ve come a long way from the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow. Second, shimps are a different species; they’re not just human beings with different cosmetic features. They wouldn’t exist at all if it weren’t for us; which ought to give us some right to a return on our investment.”
The bot reappeared with their orders at this point. Ready dipped a finger in the red liquid and ran it around the rim.
Things were getting out of hand. Lisa knew that if she started arguing she would not get what she had come for. She had to force the situation back on course. “Some right,” she said. “But not an overriding right. You agree that shimps have rights too.”
Her host’s hackles shot straight up. “You’ve never heard me say that they don’t. That’s one of those lies…” he calmed himself with some wine, then went back to rubbing the rim—“I refuse to dignify the charge by denying it.” His eyes smoldered and consumed their sympathy. “Where have their rights been denied?” he demanded. “No one ever points to an example where they have been. If someone ever does, I’ll join in the protest too.”
“What about their denial of citizenship on the colonies?” Lisa pointed.
Ready shook his head. “That’s a textbook example of muddled thinking. Those shimps were paid highly for their labor. As for the colonies, what they needed was a highly intelligent, educated citizenry, not simple laborers. Let’s be realistic; few shimps fit the bill. Those that did, stayed; those that didn’t used their high pay to start the mining companies that pushed the homs out of the Belt. Incidentally, nobody ever calls that a violation of anyone’s rights.”