“And”—the pointer swung to the north-west—“while our friends and neighbours the Chinese are as Asian as we are, it is to be regretted, don’t you think, that they have been for so long the victims of a European ideology?”
Sugaiguntung expressed vigorous agreement. That was not the official line, because the pullulating mass of the Chinese was much too close and much too powerful to offend, but it was one of the permissible inner-party attitudes.
The visitor’s cane described a banana-shaped loop which encompassed the sprawling islands of Yatakang. “It is coming to be accepted,” he murmured, “that the time is ripe for a genuinely Asiatic contribution to the future of this part of the planet. Within our boundaries we have two hundred and thirty million people who enjoy a standard of living, a standard of education, a standard of political enlightenment second to none. What’s happened to that monkey of yours?”
With a sinking sensation Sugaiguntung dispatched one of his assistants in search of the orang-outang. He attempted to point out that all the animal’s experimental predecessors had killed themselves, so that merely to have the creature alive at this stage would be an achievement, but the visitor slapped his boot again. There was an ominous silence until the youth returned, leading the ape and scolding him.
“He’d found the picture of himself,” he explained. “Unfortunately there was a picture of his favourite female in the same drawer and he’d stopped to look at it.”
From the orang-outang’s physical condition—distressingly obvious owing to the baldness of his belly—it was clear he had developed a strong sense of two-dimensional image identification, an advanced talent which many human groups such as Bushmen and Bedouin had had to be taught by outsiders. But Sugaiguntung decided it was small use trying to impress that factor on his visitor.
The latter snorted. He said, “Why are you working with such unpromising material?”
“I don’t quite follow you,” Sugaiguntung ventured.
“A monkey’s a monkey whether you adjust his chromosomes or not. Why not work on a level where much of the work has already been done for you?”
Sugaiguntung still looked baffled.
The visitor resumed his seat. He said, “Listen, Professor Doctor! Even enclosed in this laboratory you remain aware of the outside world—don’t you?”
“I do my duty as a citizen. I devote part of every day to a study of the world situation, and I attend regularly at information meetings in the area where I live.”
“Good,” the visitor approved with sarcasm. “Moreover you have pledged yourself to our national goals, the incorporation of the American-dominated Sulu Islands into our country where they rightfully and historically belong, the establishment of Yatakang as the natural pathfinder of Asiatic civilisation?”
“Naturally.” Sugaiguntung clasped his hands.
“And you’ve never flinched from contributing to those goals?”
“I think my work testifies that I have not.” Sugaiguntung was growing annoyed, or he would never have trespassed so close to bragging.
“In that case you’ll fall in with the suggestion I’m about to make, especially since the Leader”—a sketched salute towards the picture on the wall—“has personally selected it as the most promising path out of our present temporary difficulties.”
Later, having lost the argument, Sugaiguntung found himself wishing—not for the first time in recent months—that the tradition of honourably joining the ancestors had not been outlawed as inappropriate to a twenty-first-century state.
context (6)
ONE COMES OUT WHERE …
Beninia (ben-IN’-ya): country W. Africa, N. of Bight of Benin. 6330 sq. mi. Est. pop. (1999) 870,000. *Port Mey (127,000). Fishing, agriculture, handicrafts.
Brit crown col. & protectorate 1883–1971. Indep. repub. 1971–date.
85% Shinka, 10% Holaini, 3% Inoko, 2% Kpala, 30% Xian, 30% Muslim, 40% misc. pagan.
“… and remains today one of the cruellest legacies of colonial exploitation, a country which owes its present gross overpopulation to an influx of refugees from tribal conflicts in adjacent territories and almost completely lacks the natural resources to support itself. Recipient of endless UN aid, it has been reduced to the status of a beggar in the comity of nations despite President Obomi’s proud rejection of Chinese ‘technical assistance’. With the unfortunate fate of some of the former French colonies before him, possibly he was wise in the long term, but the long term is not yet here and the short term promises famine and plague…”
(NEGRO Member of a subgroup of the human race who hails, or whose ancestors hailed, from a chunk of land nicknamed—not by its residents—Africa. Superior to the Caucasian in that negroes did not invent nuclear weapons, the automobile, Christianity, nerve gas, the concentration camp, military epidemics, or the megalopolis.
—The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan)
“Old Zad’s been in that job for going on forty years and I can’t help wondering whether the reason he sticks it is because he wants to or whether there simply isn’t anyone else in the whole benighted country fit to take over his chair!”
continuity (5)
HEAR HEAR
Victoria came out of Norman’s bedroom wearing a white lei and Maxess lounging pants—two tight tubes of shimmering gold to thigh-height, ornamented behind with frills that were gathered into a bobbing rosette at her bottom, and a heavy gold fringe three layers deep hanging from a cord stretched hipbone to hipbone. It wasn’t, obviously, getting dressed that had taken her so long, but perfecting the rest of her appearance. Her almost white hair was spindled into the fashionable antenna style, her veins were traced with blue—what some wit had nicknamed “printed circuit-lation”—and her nails, nipples and contact lenses were chromed.
Glancing at the men only long enough to determine that they were deep in conversation, she crossed the room to the corner where her polyorgan was set up. Using the earphones so as not to disturb them with her pracising, she began for the uncountableth time to rehearse a simple exercise with three beats in the left hand and five in the right.
* * *
As always when someone asked him about a subject outside his speciality, Donald was embarrassingly aware of the extent of his ignorance. However, when he had summed up what he could recall of Beninia—privately wondering all the time why Norman didn’t simply go to the phone and punch for an encyclopedia connection—the Afram looked honestly impressed.
“Thanks. You’ve reminded me of several points I’d forgotten.”
“Why the sudden interest in such an insignificant country?” Donald probed.
Norman hesitated. He glanced at Victoria, decided that with the unheard booming of the organ in her ears she could not be eavesdropping, and gave a wry smile.
“You don’t have any in GT’s company secrets, do you?”
“Of course not,” Donald said with a trace of huffiness, and prepared to rise and collect another drink.
On the verge of anger—trust a paleass to misunderstand me!—Norman controlled himself.
“Sorry, that’s not what I meant.” He swallowed hard. “I meant: you don’t mind if I mention something which strictly I ought not to?”
“I promise it won’t go any further,” Donald assured him, settling into his chair again. What could all this be leading up to? Norman was unprecedentedly nervous, twisting his hands together as though he could wring out the sweat that moistened their palms.
“Tell me why you think Old GT, plus the corporation treasurer and the senior VP in charge of projects and planning, should invite Elihu Masters to lunch, put me on display like a—like a cabaret turn, and then discuss nothing repeat nothing but generalities.”