“Except back to a sense of solid identity,” Freeman murmured.
“In the case of the lucky few. But yes, okay.”
“Then let me lay this on you. If you hadn’t met Miranda—if you hadn’t found out that our suspicions concerning the genetic component of personality were being verified by experiment—would you have deserted from Tarnover?”
“I think sooner or later I’d have quit anyhow. The attitude that can lead to using crippled children as experimental material would have disconnected me.”
“You spin like a weather vane. You’ve said, or implied, repeatedly that at Tarnover we’re conditioning people not to rebel. You can’t maintain at the same time that what we’re doing would have encouraged you to rebel.”
Freeman gave his skull-like grin and rose, stretching his cramped limbs.
“Our methods are being tested in the only available lab: society at large. So far they show excellent results. Instead of condemning them out of hand you should reflect on how much worse the alternatives are. After what you underwent last summer, you of all people should appreciate what I mean. In the morning we’ll rerun the relevant memories and see if they help to straighten you.”
CLIFFHANGER
They had to continue in a paid-avoidance zone. So, to supplement recollection, they bought a four-year-old tourist guide alleged to contain full details of all the post-quake settlements. Most rated four or even six pages of text, plus as many color pictures. Precipice was dismissed in half a page. On the fold-out map included with the booklet only one road—and that a poor one—was shown passing through it, from Quemadura in the south to Protempore thirty miles northwest, plus tracks for an electric railcar service whose schedule was described as irregular. The towns were graded according to what modern facilities could be found there; Precipice came bottom of the list. Among the things Precipicians didn’t like might be cited the data-net, veephones, surface vehicles not running on tracks, heavier-than-air craft (though they tolerated helium and hot-air dirigibles), modern merchandising methods and the federal government. This last could be deduced from the datum that they had compounded to pay a flat-rate tax per year instead of income tax, though the sum appeared absurdly high considering there was no industry bar handicrafts (not available to wholesalers).
“It sounds like some sort of Amish setup,” Kate commented, frowning over the brief entry in the guide.
“No, it can’t be. They won’t allow churches or other religious buildings.” He was gazing into nowhere, focusing on facts casually encountered long ago. “I borrowed some ideas from the paid-avoidance zones while I was a utopia designer. I needed to figure a way of editing dogmatic religion into a community without the risk of breeding intolerance. I checked out several of these towns, and I distinctly remember ignoring Precipice because in any case I couldn’t spare the time to dig right down deep for more data. Almost nothing about the place, bar its location, was in store. Oh, yes: and a population limit of three thousand.”
“Huh? A legally imposed limit, you mean?” On his nod: “Imposed by whom—the citizens or the state government?”
“The citizens.”
“Compulsory birth control?”
“I don’t know. I told you: when I found how little I could fish from the banks, I didn’t bother to pursue the matter.”
“Do they ride visitors out again on a rail?”
He gave a half-smile. “No, that’s one other fact I remember. It’s an open community, administered by some sort of town meeting, I think, and you may indeed go there to look it over or even to stay indefinitely. They just don’t care for advertising, and apparently they regard noising their existence abroad as the same thing in principle.”
“We go there, then,” Kate said decisively, slapping shut the booklet.
“My choice would be the opposite. To be trapped in a backwater … But tell me why.”
“Precisely because there’s so little information in the banks. It’s beyond belief that the government won’t have tried—probably tried extremely hard—to tie Precipice into the net at least to the same extent as Protempore and Lap-of-the-Gods. If the citizens are dogged enough to stand out against such pressure, they might sympathize with your plight the way I do.”
Appalled, he blurted out, “You mean you want me to march in and announce it?”
“Will you stop that?” Kate stamped her foot, eyes flashing. “Grow out of your megalomania, for pity’s sake! Quit thinking in terms of ‘Sandy Locke versus the world’ and start believing that there are other people dissatisfied with the state of things, anxious to set it right. You know”—a level, caustic glare—“I’m beginning to think you’ve never sought help from others for fear you might wind up being the one who does the helping. You always like to be in charge, don’t you? Particularly of yourself!”
He drew a deep breath and let it out very slowly, forcing his embryonic annoyance to go with it. He said at length, “I knew what they offered me under the guise of ‘wisdom’ at Tarnover wasn’t the genuine article. It was so totally wrong it’s taken me until now to realize I finally ran across it. Kate, you’re a wise person. The first one I ever met.”
“Don’t encourage me to think so. If I ever come to believe it, I shall fall flat on my face.”
OUBLIETTE
By about then the lean black man from Tarnover was through with Ina Grierson and let her go home, stumbling with weariness. Before she fell asleep, however, she had to know one thing that Freeman had declined to tell her:
What the hell was so earthmoving about Sandy Locke?
She was not the most expert of data-mice; however, her position as head-of-dept for transient execs gave her access to the files of G2S employees. Trembling, she punched the code that started with 4GH.
The screen stayed blank.
She tried every route she could think of to gain access to the data, including some that were within the ace of being illegal … though they bent, rather than broke, the regulations laid down by the Bureau of Data Processing, and a blind eye was generally turned.
The result was invariably the same blank screen.
At first she only nibbled her nails; later, she started to gnaw them; finally, she had to cram her fingers into her mouth to stop herself whimpering in mingled terror and exhaustion.
If all her best attempts had failed, there was just one conclusion to be drawn. Sandy Locke, so far as the data-net was concerned, had been deleted from the human race.
For the first time since she broke her heart at seventeen, Ina Grierson cried herself to sleep.
A SHOULDER TO BE WEPT ON BY THE WORLD
So they went to Precipice, where there wasn’t one. The town had been founded on the levelest ground for miles, a patch of soft but stable silt due to some long-ago river which still had a few creeks meandering across it. Though hills could be seen on three sides, their slopes were gentle and any earthquake that shifted them in their eon-long slumber would be violent enough to cast loose California entire.
They rode toward it in the electric railcar with the irregular schedule, which they boarded at Transience. Small wonder the car didn’t stick to a fixed timetable. As they were informed by the driver—a burly smiling man wearing shorts, sunglasses and sandals—a local ordinance obliged it to give precedence at all crossings to anyone on foot, cycle or horseback, as well as to farm animals and agricultural vehicles. Moreover, when making its final loop around Precipice proper it had to let passengers on or off at any point. Taking full advantage of this facility, local people boarded and descended every few hundred meters. All of them gazed with unashamed curiosity at the strangers.