Not that any of them could actually live Outside, without walls, breathing unfiltered air filled with microorganisms that bred disease and eating unprocessed food that had grown in dirt; Amy shuddered at the thought. Better to leave the Outside to the robots that worked the mines and tended the crops the Cities demanded. Better to live as they did, whatever the problems, and avoid the pathological ways of the Spacers, those descendants of the Earthpeople who had settled other planets long ago. They could not follow Spacer customs anyway. In a world of billions, resources could not be wasted on private houses, spacious gardens and grounds, and all the rest. Alysha Barone, despite her somewhat Medievalist views, would not be capable of leaving this City except to travel, safely enclosed, to another.
Her mother had, however, clung to a few ancient customs, with the encouragement of a few mildly unconventional friends. Alysha Barone had insisted on keeping her own name after her marriage to Ricardo Stein, and he had agreed when she asked that Amy be given both their names. The couple had been given permission to have their first child during their first year of marriage, thanks to their Genetics Values ratings, but Amy had not been born until four years later. Both Alysha and Ricardo had been statisticians in New York’s Department of Human Resources; it made sense to work for a promotion, gain more privileges, and save more of their quota allowances before having a child. They had ignored the chiding of their own parents and the friends who had accused them of being just a little antisocial.
Amy knew the story well, having heard most of it from her disapproving grandmother Barone. The two had each risen to a C-4 rating before Alysha became pregnant; even then, astonishingly, they had discussed which of them should give up the Department job. Only the most antisocial of couples would have tried to keep two such coveted positions. There were too many unclassified people without work, on subsistence with no chance to rise, and others who had been relegated to labor in the City yeast farm levels after losing jobs to robots. Her parents’ colleagues would have made their lives miserable if they both stayed with the Department; their superiors would have blocked any promotions, perhaps even found a way to demote them. Someone also had to look after Amy. The infant could not be left in the subsection nursery all day, and both grandmothers had refused to encourage any antisocial activity by offering to stay with the baby.
So Alysha had given up her job. Her husband might be willing to care for a baby, but he could not nurse the child, and nursing saved on rations. Ricardo had won another promotion a few years after Amy’s birth, and they had moved from their two-room place in the Van
Cortlandt Section to this apartment. Now Amy’s father was a C-6, with a private stall in the Men’s Personal, a functioning sink in his room, larger quota allowances for entertainment, and the right to eat four meals a week at home.
Her parents would have been foolish to give up a chance at all that. How useless it would have been for Alysha to hope for her position at the Department; they would have risked everything in the end.
The door opened; her mother came inside. Amy sat up. Her small bed took up most of the room; there was no other place to sit, and Alysha clearly wanted to talk.
Her mother seated herself, then draped an arm over Amy’s shoulders. “I know how you feel,” she said.
Amy shook her head. “No, you don’t.”
Her mother hugged her more tightly. “I felt that way myself once, but couldn’t see that I’d be any better off not trying at all. You should learn what you can, Amy, and not just so that you’ll be able to help your own children with their schoolwork. Learning will give you pleasure later, something you’ll carry inside yourself that no one can take from you. Things may change, and then-”
“They’ll never change. I wish-Things were better in the old days. “
“No, they weren’t,” her mother responded. “They were better for a few people and very bad for a lot of others. I may affect a few Medievalisms, but I also know how people fought and starved and suffered long ago, and the Cities are better than that. No one starves, and we can, generally speaking, go about our business without fearing violence, but that requires cooperation-we couldn’t live, crowded together as we are, any other way. We have to get along, and that often means giving up what we might want so that everyone at least has something. Still-”
“I get the point,” Amy said bitterly. “Civism is good. The Cities are the height of human civilization.” She imitated the pompous manner of her history teacher as she spoke. “ And if I can’t get along and be grateful for what I’ve got, I’m just a pathological antisocial individualist. “
Her mother was silent for a long time, then said, “There are more robots taking jobs away from people inside the Cities. The population keeps growing, and that means people will eventually have even less-we could see something close to starvation again. The Cities can’t expand much more, and that means less space for each of us. People may lash out at an occasional robot now, since they’re the most convenient targets for expressing resentment, but if we start lashing out at one another-” She paused. “Something has to give way. Even that small band of people who hope the Spacers will eventually let them leave Earth to settle another world know that.”
Amy said, “They’re silly.”
“Most would say so.”
Amy frowned. She knew about those people; they occasionally went Outside to play at being farmers or some such thing. She could not imagine how they stood it, or what good it did them. A City detective named Elijah Baley was the tiny band’s leader; maybe he thought the Spacers would help him. He had recently returned from one of their worlds, where they had asked him to help them solve a crime; maybe he thought Spacers could be his friends.
Amy knew better. The Spacers had only used him. She thought of the Spacer characters she had seen in hyperwave and book-film adventures. They were all tall, handsome, tanned, bronze-haired people with eyes as cold as those of the legions of robots that served them. In the dramas, they might be friendly to or even love some Earthpeople, but in reality they despised the people of the Cities. They would never allow Earthfolk to contaminate their worlds or the others in this galaxy. They might use an Earthman such as Baley, but would only discard him afterward.
“What I’m trying to say,” Alysha said softly, “is that change may come. Whatever disruptions it brings, it may also present opportunities, but only to people who are ready to seize them. “ Amy tensed a little; this was the most antisocial statement she had ever heard from her mother. “It would be better if you were prepared for that and developed whatever talents might be useful. When I worked for the Department, I knew what the statistics were implying-it’s impossible for even the most determined bureaucrat to hide the whole truth. I could see-but I’ve said enough.”
“Mother-” Amy swallowed. “Are you going to tell Father what Mr. Liang said?”
Alysha plucked at her long, dark hair, looking distressed. “I really should. I’ll have to if I’m called in for a conference, and then Rick will wonder why I didn’t mention it earlier. I won’t if you promise you’ll work harder.”
Amy sighed with relief. “I promise.” She hoped she could keep that vow.
“Then I’ll leave you to your studying. You have a little time before Rick gets home. “
The door closed behind Alysha. Amy reached for her viewer and stretched out. Nothing would change, no matter what her mother said. Whatever Amy did, sooner or later she would, as her friend Debora Lister put it, wind up at the end of the line. She would be pushed to the end of the line when her teachers began to hint that certain studies would be more useful for a girl. She would be forced back again when college advisers pointed out that it was selfish to take a place in certain classes, since she would not use such specialized training for a lifetime, as a boy would. If she moved up the line then, she would only be pushed back later, when she married and had her own children.