“So does that mean you’re stuck being a waitress or janitor or something else like that?” I asked her. “Doing those jobs machines can’t or don’t do but which require no reading?”
“Oh, I can do a little better than that, if I prove it,” she answered confidently. “After all, if I can talk to a computer and the computer can talk back I can still use it okay. But, yeah, you’re right. Beyond a certain point there are lots of jobs I could do but literate persons could do a little faster or more efficiently, so they get the jobs. But that’s not what I’m supposed to do anyway, after a while. Why do you think they paired us, anyway?”
I thought a moment. “Because neither of us fit?”
She laughed at that. “No—well, maybe. I hadn’t thought of that. But eventually we’re supposed to found a family group. I’ll be the Base Mother—I’ll maintain the house and take care of the kids. And I’ll be able to teach ’em when they’re young, and nobody’s gonna mind if I need a vox to do the budget. It’s not so bad. Better than being in a deadend job, or any of the alternatives, like being a Goodtime Girl or working the mines of the moons of Momrath.”
Aha! Another set of pieces fall into place. “Then, in a way, we’re married. At our age!”
She gave me a big smile. “I guess you can say that. Sort of. Why? When do people marry Outside?”
“Well, mostly they don’t,” I told her honestly. “Most people are genetically engineered to do a particular thing and to do it better than anything else. You were raised by specialists and trained for what you’re going to do, then you do it. But, yeah, there are some marriages.” All types, too, but there was no use complicating things for her. “Most people don’t bother, though.”
She nodded. “They teach us something about Outside, but it’s really hard to imagine anyplace else than here. I know a couple of people who’ve been to Cerberus, and that’s strange enough. They switch minds and bodies all the time and live on. trees in the water. Crazy.”
Body-switching, I thought. My counterpart there must be having a field day. “That sounds pretty weird to me, too,” I assured her. “But maybe one day I’ll see it. They think when I’m old enough I can become a pilot.”
That romanticism lurking inside her peered out of her face again. “A pilot Wow. Have you ever flown anything before?”
I shook my head from side to side. “No,” I lied, “not really. Oh, my father occasionally let me take the controls once we were underway, and I know everything there is to know about flying. But, I mean, I was just twelve when I got arrested.”
That brought my past back into focus, and, as I suspected, she was trying not to think in that direction. Still, she asked, “If you were born in a lab or something and raised in a group, how could you. have a father?”
That was an intelligent question. I was becoming more and more impressed with her. “Those of us in certain positions, like politics and administration, have to have some kind of family so we can learn how things work and make the personal contacts we need,” I explained. “So, when we’re five, we’re adopted by someone in the position we’re intended to be in someday. Sometimes it’s just business, but sometimes we grow real close, like me and my father.” Acting time, boy—give a good performance. Face turns angry, maybe a hint of bitterness in my voice. “Yeah—like me and my father,” I repeated slowly.
She looked suddenly nervous. “I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up again unless you want to.”
I snapped out of my mood. At least the performance was good enough for her. “No, that’s all right. He was a great manvand I don’t want to forget him—ever. But that was long ago and it’s over. Here and now is what’s important.” I paused for dramatic effect, then cleared my throat, sniffled a little, and changed the subject. “What about these Good-tune Girls? What are they?”
She seemed relieved at the opportunity to get out of a sticky situation. I hoped I’d just laid to rest a lot of otherwise inevitable prying about a past I really didn’t have, the area most likely to trip me up. “Goodtime Girls is a general title for the entertainer class. It’s a dead end, but they’re put under psych so they don’t think much.” She shivered. “I don’t want to talk about them. They’re necessary, of course, and serve a need of the State, but it’s not anything I’d like.” She suddenly yawned, tried to repress it, couldn’t, then shook her head. “Sorry. It’s getting near my bedtime, I guess. I usually like to sleep in the middle of the off-time, so I have time before work to do things. If you want to do it differently we’ll have to work something out.”
“That’s all right,” I assured her. “I’ll adjust to your schedule for now. You get some sleep—I’ll manage. If I can’t drift off, maybe I’ll just explore the dorm for a while and see what all is here. I’ll need a couple of days to make the shift to this sleep time.”
She nodded sleepily and yawned again. “If you do go out, don’t go beyond the inside of the dorm, though. It’s a rule that pairs should do everything together.” Again a yawn.
“That’s all right. Til be good,” I assured her good-naturedly. “I have a good teacher.”
I let her crawl into bed and she was soon fast asleep. I did not go out, at least not then. Instead I just lay there, thinking about all the new material I had to sort through, what I had learned, what I had to work with, and what potentialities might be here for mischief.
Ohing was going to be an invaluable asset at the start, that was for sure. She was smart, romantic, and a knowledgeable native guide. But in the long run she would be a problem. You can’t overthrow a system or set up the assassination of a Lord of the Diamond when you have for a constant companion someone raised always to believe in and trust in the system. As a romantic, she might easily wind up falling in love with me—which would be okay—but that would also mean that she might just turn me in to TMS for my own good.
There were ways, although they’d take some time and ingenuity. But talk about long-range planning! The only way to separate Ching and myself, obviously, was to get her pregnant and stick her home with the kid. And I was only fourteen and a half years old and still technically a virgin…
CHAPTER FIVE
A Friendly Chat with IMS
My job was, in fact, as easy as Ching had made it out to be. Machines still did the real work—we just guided and directed them and made complete inspections of the passenger cars, buses, and train-crew quarters simply because humans will stick things and drop things and wedge things in places no machine would ever think of looking, let alone cleaning. How many times was I guilty of sticking stuff under a seat or between cushions just because it was convenient? It might be healthy if everyone had to spend a couple of months cleaning trains and buses before being allowed to ride them.
Ching was so happy to have a friend at last and something solid to hang on to that she was far more pleasure than inconvenience. Hoping to get us involved in Guild hobbies and recreational activities, she took full advantage of our off time to show me the city and its services and frills, which were quite a bit more elaborate than I had expected.
Gray Basin was nicely laid out once you understood the initial logic of it, and this, she assured me, was pretty much how all cities on Medusa were laid out, even the ones above ground. Just about everything was prefabricated, which allowed for expansion, change, and growth with a minimum of displacement and trauma. Everything, everywhere, just sort of fit together.
There was theater, well-mounted if heavy on the musical fluff mixed with propaganda and duty to the State, and you could punch up an extensive library of books on your dorm terminal, even order a hard copy for delivery for a small sum. The books were heavy on technical and practical subjects and not much on literature and politics, for obvious reasons—no use contaminating fresh minds.