The Planner raised his hands. “You’re not answering me, Morrow.”
Morrow was confused. He’d long since learned that when dealing with people like Milpitas, words turned into weapons, fine blades whose movements he could barely follow. “But you asked me what the ratchets were for.”
“No. I asked you what you thought of the question, not for an answer to the question itself. That’s very different.”
Morrow tried to work that out. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“No.” The Planner rested his long, surgery-scarred fingers on the desk before him. Milpitas seemed to be one of those unfortunate individuals suffering a partial AS failure, necessitating this kind of gross rework of his body. “No, I really believe you don’t. And that’s precisely the problem, isn’t it, Morrow?”
He stood and walked to the window of his office. From here Morrow could see the outer frame of the Temple; its face was a tilted plane of golden light. Milpitas’ wide, bony face was framed by the iron sky, the sourceless daylight.
“The question has no value,” Milpitas said at length. “And so an answer to it would have no value — it would be meaningless, because the question in itself has no reference to anything meaningful.” He turned to Morrow and smiled searchingly. “I know you’re not happy with that answer. Go ahead; don’t be afraid. Tell me what you think.”
Morrow sighed. I think you’re crazy. “I think you’re playing with words.” He picked up the ring. “Of course this thing has a purpose. It exists, physically. We expend effort in making it — ”
“Everything we do has a purpose, Morrow, and one purpose only.” Milpitas looked solemn. “Do you know what that is?”
Morrow felt vaguely irritated. “The survival of the species. I’m not a child, Planner.”
“Exactly. Good. That’s why we’re here; that’s why Superet built this ship-world of ours; that’s why my grandmother — dead now, of course — and the others initiated this voyage. That’s the purpose that informs everything we do.”
Morrow’s irritation turned into a vague rebelliousness. Everything? Even the elimination of the children?
He wondered how many interviews, like this, he had suffered over the years.
Vaguely he remembered a time when things hadn’t been like this. Right at the start of his life, half a millennium ago, the great Virtual devices, hidden somewhere in the fabric of the world, had covered the drab hull walls with scenes of lost, beautiful panoramas: he remembered Virtual suns and moons crossing a Virtual sky, children running in the streets.
There had been a feeling of space — of infinity. The Virtuals had had the power to make this box-world seem immense, without constraints.
But Superet had closed down the Virtuals, one by one, exposing the skull-like reality of the world which lay beneath the illusion. No one now seemed to know where the Virtual machines were, or how to get access to them, even if they still worked.
At the same time Superet had first discouraged, then abolished, childbirth. Morrow had been one of the last children to be born, in fact.
Virtual dioramas — and the voices of children — were no longer necessary, Superet said.
There were no young, and the people grew old. There was neither day nor night, but only the endless, steel-gray, sourceless light which — diffused from the metal hull — gave the impression of a continual dawn. Leisure activities theaters, study groups, play groups — had fallen into disuse. The world was structured only by the endless drudgery of work.
Work, and study of the words of the founders of Superet, of course.
Milpitas turned his wide, rather coarse face to Morrow. “Superet’s one imperative is to ensure the survival of the species — physically, through our genes, and culturally, through the memes we carry — into the indefinite future.” He pointed to the iron sky. “Everything we do is driven by that logic, Morrow. For all we know, we are the only humans alive, anywhere. And so we must optimize the use of our resources.
“At present we’re succeeding. Our population is well-adjusted; we have no need of new generations — not until our resource situation changes.”
But, Morrow thought wildly, but the population isn’t stable. Every year people died — through accident, or obscure AS-failure. So, every year, the population actually fell.
Over the centuries he had witnessed the steady drop in population, the slow retreat from the lower Decks. When Morrow had been born, he was sure that the lifedome had been inhabited all the way down to Deck Eight — and it was said there were another seven or eight Decks below that. Now, only Decks Two and Three were occupied.
Could there be a point, he wondered, below which the race couldn’t regenerate itself, even if the temporary sterility was reversed?
What would Superet do then?
Milpitas sat down once more. When he spoke again, the Planner seemed to be trying to be kind. “Morrow, you must not torment yourself — and those around you — with questions that can’t be answered. You know, in principle, why our world is as it is. Isn’t that sufficient? Is it really necessary for you to understand every detail?”
But if I don’t understand, Morrow thought sourly, then you can control me. Arbitrarily. And that’s what I find hard to accept.
Milpitas steepled his fingers. “Here’s another dimension you need to think about.” His voice was harsher now. “Tell me, what are your views on the internal contradictions of the meme versus gene duality?”
Morrow, glowering, refused to answer.
Milpitas smiled, exquisitely patronizing. “You don’t understand the question, do you? Can you read?”
“Yes, I can read,” Morrow said testily. “I had to teach myself, but, yes, I can read.”
Milpitas frowned. “But you don’t need to be able to read. Most people don’t need to. It’s a luxury, Morrow; an indulgence.
“We must all accept our limitations, Morrow; you have to accept that there are people who know better than you do.”
Morrow steeled himself. Here it comes. No punishment was going to be terribly onerous, but he found any disruption from his daily routine increasingly difficult, even painful.
“Four weeks on Deck One,” Milpitas said briskly, making a note. “I’ll coordinate this with your supervisor in the shops. I’m sorry to do this, Morrow, but you must see my position; we can’t have you disrupting those around you with your — your ill-disciplined thinking.”
Deck One. The Locks. One of the most difficult — if not frightening — places to work on all the Decks. This was a tough punishment, for what he still couldn’t accept as a crime…
But, nevertheless, he found himself suppressing a grin at the irony of this. For the Locks — and the strange, illicit trade that went on through them — were an explicit embodiment of the contradictions within his society.
The first tendrils of morning light snaked up over the sky-dome like living things. The dim stars fled.
Arrow Maker unwrapped himself from his branch and stretched the stiffness out of his limbs. The breeze up here was fresh and dry. He urinated against the bole of the tree; the hot liquid darkened the wood and coursed down toward the canopy. He chewed on some of the meat from his belt, and lapped up dew moisture from the kapok’s leaves. The water wasn’t much, but he’d find more later, in the bowls of orchids and bromeliads.