Julian extended his hand. “Thank you very much, sir.”
“Oh, I say, not at all, dear boy. Give my regards to your uncle when the trip is over.”
Although the directions had seemed very simple, Julian managed to lose his way. After a time, he found himself in a slum street, not much different than the alleyway in which he had seen the starving children.
From a dark doorway a voice hissed at him, “Sahib?”
He came to a halt, frowning. He could make out an Indian woman in a pink sari, a caste mark on her forehead. She had by the hand a child of possibly four or five, with its own small sari. It was a beautiful child.
Julian came closer and said, “Yes?”
The woman beckoned to him, but he still didn’t understand. “What do you want?” he asked.
She reached down and lifted the child’s sari.
Julian blanched. At this point in his life, he had never had sexual relations, but there was no misunderstanding the gesture. He was being offered the child’s body. The woman was attempting to sell the little girl sexually. Her own daughter? Probably, he thought numbly.
It was at this point that he awoke, the horror still with him.
As he lay there, the rest of the experience came back. He had returned to the ship, after getting directions from another Sikh police officer, and had remained on it for the balance of the stay in India. He had not gone ashore again until they reached Hong Kong, and then only to take an airplane back to the States.
Spending the whole West fortune would not have been a drop in the bottomless pit of India’s poverty, according to Sir Edward Fitz-James. But when he had finally come into his inheritance, couldn’t he have done something, maybe set up a foundation to at least help out? Perhaps some hospitals, or orphanages?
But no, he told himself now, he hadn’t done a thing. Like his fellows, he had looked at philanthropy largely as a tax dodge. Born to wealth, he had been contemptuous of those who didn’t have it; it was a God-given privilege that he enjoyed because of his innate right to enjoy it. The only foundations West Enterprises had ever endowed had in one manner or another profited him, including the one set up for Dr. Pillsbury in return for putting him into stasis.
But the poverty of India had distressed him as a boy. Looking backward now, he couldn’t dismiss the poverty pockets in his own supposedly wealthy country. He had seen slums in Washington, D.C. not half a mile from the White House that were nearly as bad as those of Bombay. He had seen slums in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, possibly the three richest cities of the time, that were unbelievable.
Chapter Fourteen
The Year 2, New Calendar
In the past, man had little power over either his environment or his own nature. Nothing we did could fundamentally affect these factors, which were the result of natural processes that have acted over billions of years. But advances in our scientific knowledge, and the technological capabilities flowing from this knowledge, are making it possible for the human race to influence itself and its environment in major ways… If the decisions are not made rationally, it is highly unlikely that we or our descendants will appreciate the world that emerges.
Julian had planned to spend a few hours at his studies before going over to the Leetes’, but it didn’t work out that way.
He had hardly finished his toilet and breakfast and sat down at his desk, when the phone screen buzzed.
He activated it and was confronted with the youthful, open face of Sean O’Callahan.
“Good morning, Mr. West. I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Make it Julian. No, of course not. What can I do for you, Sean?”
He grinned. “Well, as a matter of fact, I have somewhat of a surprise for you. Can you come over to my place? I’m in Building Two, sixteenth floor, apartment sixteen-B.”
“A surprise?” Julian echoed—surprised.
“That’s right.”
He said, “All right, I’ll be right over.”
“Fine.” The other’s face faded from the screen.
Julian stood up and made his way toward the door. He couldn’t think of any particular reason to notify the Leetes of his little expedition into the outside world. In fact, unless he was mistaken, this was one of Edith’s work days and hadn’t Mrs. Leete said something about attending a meeting?
He took the elevator down to the metro level, and looked around. Always before when he had ventured out, one or more of the Leetes had been along, so he hadn’t had to figure out the transport system.
He asked the first passerby in halting Interlingua how to get to Building Two, which he assumed to be one of the other high-rise apartment buildings in the university city. The directions were simplicity itself, and he took the next car heading for his destination.
He’d hardly had time to seat himself before they were at a new station whose sign read BUILDING TWO. He got out and made his way over to the elevator banks. From time to time people passing would smile at him in friendly fashion, and twice people nodded and said, “Mr. West,” by way of greeting. Although he knew none of them, evidently his face was recognized widely. So, he was rapidly becoming a minor celebrity in spite of Dr. Leete’s attempts to shield him in these early weeks of his arrival from the past.
He said, “Sixteenth Floor,” into the elevator’s screen and the robotlike voice answered, “Yes, Mr. West.” He wondered vaguely what would happen if he went out to some place on the Pacific coast: would the elevator screens recognize him there? Were the data banks and the face of every resident of United America tied in with every screen in the country? The magnitude of it all rather boggled his mind.
There were signs on the wall on the sixteenth floor, giving directions. He had no difficultly finding Sean O’Callahan’s apartment. He pressed the button, standing before the identity screen.
The door opened, and he was greeted by a beaming Sean.
“Come in and meet your surprise.”
Frowning in puzzlement, Julian followed his host into the living room. Four men were seated there, including William Harrison and Frederic Ley. The other two were strangers: a young man of possibly thirty, tall, intelligent-looking, with a somewhat quizzical expression; the other must have been somewhere in his early seventies, slightly heavy, gray hair and mustache, slightly florid face.
The latter said in a slow voice, “Hello, Jule. It’s been a long time.”
Julian stared at him, shot a puzzled look at the grinning Sean, then gazed back at the elderly man.
“You look exactly like you did the last time we saw each other in the Knickerbocker-Links Club in New York. I’m afraid you can’t say the same about me.”
“I’ll be damned!” Julian exclaimed. “Bert Melville!”
“That’s right, Jule. I thought you were committing suicide when you let that crackpot Doctor Pillsbury put you into hibernation; evidently he wasn’t as big a crackpot as everybody thought. Here you are, looking about thirty-five. Here I am looking seventy-three and feeling every year of it. I should have let him put me under too.”
“To wake up in a world like this?” Harrison said bitterly.
Sean led Julian over to the younger man, who stood at their approach. “This is Dave Woolman,” he said, “who has one of the most fascinating jobs in the country.”