He looked closely at Ariel. During their excursions on the expressway she had seemed alive, vital, healthy. Now she seemed tired, petulant, lethargic. Fear gripped his heart like a fist.
“I’m tired of being cooped up. I want out!” she said.
Derec had to slow his own breathing and wait till his heart stopped pounding. “ Sodo I,” he said, his tone so controlled that despite her lethargy she glanced quickly at him.
R. David’s face was not made to express his concern. “Few Earth people leave their Cities, but there are some with a perverse attraction for openness and isolation. These direct the robots of the mines and farms, and man certain industrial facilities distant from the Cities for safety reasons. Other Earthers, wishing to become Settlers, join conditioning schools that accustom them to space and openness.”
“Settlers!” said Ariel with surprise.
“Of course,” said Derec wonderingly. “We know Earth people never leave their Cities; we also know that they alone are settling new planets. We should have made the connection long since. Conditioning is the only answer.”
“Could we join one of these schools?” she asked.
“It would take us outdoors,” said Derec uncertainly. But as he thought about it he shook his head. “I suspect that applicants for Settler worlds are investigated pretty strictly.”
“Oh. Then-the other?”
Derec didn’t know. “If we could get a job on a farm, directing robots…” He turned to R. David. “How are these workers chosen?”
“I am not sure of the details, but I suppose that one must apply for the job,” said R. David.
Something Scanlan had said occurred to Derec. “Food and other raw materials are brought in from the surrounding areas by truck,” he said. “Maybe, if we got jobs driving trucks-”
He didn’t care to finish the sentence, not knowing to what extent R. David would condone violations of Earth laws. Ariel caught his meaning at once however and her eyes brightened.
How long it would take to drive a distance that a train could travel in twelve hours, he didn’t know. What kind of pursuit they could expect, he had no idea. But nothing else seemed even remotely feasible.
R. David told them how to find out what they needed to know: the nearest communo would give them most of the information they needed for a start. Ariel’s mood had lifted again, and again they ventured forth.
They consulted the directory at the communo, found Job Service, and checked Farms-truck drivers. A number of company names were listed, and Derec chose the Missouri Farm Company at random. It immediately transmitted an application form for them, which they could fill out by answering verbally when the pointer moved from question to question.
The first question was, Do you have a driver’s license?
Derec sighed and canceled everything, went back to the menu, and did some exploring.
“I wish there was an information robot we could call up and ask,” he said, frustrated.
It turned out that many Earthers who never went outside the City needed to know how to drive. There were schools, which taught them according to the regulations-and the instructions and regulations, being government-standardized, were readily available. They only had to take a book card and go to a library, then pay to have them printed off.
Another request gave them a map of the area, with YOU ARE HERE labeled and TARGET: Library indicated. They compared that to their own map, and nodded.
Opening the door of the communo booth made it switch back from opaque to clear, and they were given a sour look by the middle-aged fellow waiting for it.
“Canntchee find a private place out of people’s way?” he growled, lurching past them.
Derec turned red, half with anger, half with embarrassment. Ariel was equally angry and much less embarrassed.
They walked away, seething, and observed that the playground was largely deserted. It was getting late.
“I hope we’re not too late,” he said.
“Yes.” After a moment, Ariel said, “I suppose Earthers have a lot of trouble courting.”
She had a point. No pleasant, nearly empty gardens for them to walk in on fine days; no large rambling mansions to prowl through on wet ones. What did they do? Derec wondered what he and Ariel might have done, back in his unremembered past.
It had been the leading edge of the rush hour when they had arrived back home from the train station. Now all that was over, and the people were leaving the section kitchen in droves. They had only eaten twice today, both times fairly early-and neither had eaten much on the ship.
“Frost, they’re still open,” said Derec. “I thought we’d go hungry all night.”
“So did I,” said Ariel. The line moved rapidly and they were soon in, and were astonished to find that free choice had not been suspended. They were assigned to table F-3 this time. The place, with only a couple of thousand people in it, seemed deserted.
The table, when they found it, had probably been used by three or four relays of diners for the evening meal, but it was surprisingly clean and neat. They saw Earthers industriously wiping up their places prior to leaving. Others, attendants, came around with cleansing utensils that seemed almost superfluous; some sprayed the places with steam guns to sterilize them.
They were far enough from their neighbors to speak freely in low tones. “I suppose there are strong social forces to make them clean up their places,” Ariel said.
Derec thought about it, nodded. Mere laws could not have such force. “I suppose they train their kids: Clean up your places. What’ll the neighbors think?”
“The forces for conformity to social norms must be tremendous,” she said. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“It makes their whole civilization possible. And are we that different?” he asked.
Ariel shook her head somberly. She had been exiled for violating some of those norms.
They were given three choices: Zymosteak, again, Sweet-and-Pungent Zymopork, and Pseudo-Chicken Casserole. Side dishes included such things as salads and fruit plates, Hearty Hungarian Goulash, Vegetable Pseudo-Beef Stew, and so on. They chose the Zymopork and the casserole, and browsed among the side dishes, almost famishing from the smell of the food around them.
“At least, seated here in the middle, we can watch the families,” Ariel said.
“Right. I was wondering if it would be acceptable to divide our dishes with each other. But see that family with the four kids-the kids are swapping around ad lib.”
“Yes-and the parents. Different side dishes come with different main courses, and they’re trading off.”
The food arrived at that point, and they wasted no more time watching others eat.
When they had finished and exited the kitchen, Derec paused, glancing around.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s still light,” he said. “It should be getting dark.”
She laughed nervously. They moved aside, out of the way, and strolled slowly toward the ways. “I know what you mean. Especially for us, since we got up well before what these people consider the dawn. But, of course, the lights will never dim.”
They rode the localway for a short distance, changed ways, and presently found themselves at a massive entrance flanked with stone lions.
“Stone!” said Ariel, sounding astonished. “I supposed they’d be plastic or something.”
“Or nothing,” said Derec. He liked libraries, though people rarely visited them on the Spacer worlds. It was simpler just to call them up and have the books transmitted over your phone.
“I suppose many apartments on Earth must be equipped to receive book transmissions,” he said.
“In higher social classes,” Ariel said wryly, and he laughed. Spacers though they were, they were not masquerading merely as Earthers, but as low-rated Earthers.
Crowds of people, as usual on Earth, swarmed up and down the ornamental steps that led up to the entry. Some sat on the steps or the balusters, talking, laughing, eating or drinking, and many reading. A group of children played on one of the lions, their book-viewers laid carefully between its paws. Inside were uniformed guards with clubs and surprisingly cheerful expressions, sober people of all ages swarming about, many of them young, and people sitting around tables. Virtually every terminal was in use.