“I’m not worried. It’s just that, well, it seems to me that this business of mortics is the only unpleasant thing in a very pleasant world.”
Valinia laughed lightly. “It’s the old story of day and night, light and dark. You can’t have one without the other. Besides, the arrangement is much more satisfactory and efficient than the old obsolete systems of taxation. At one time the machinery of State revenue became so complex that it took five years for tax assessors to learn their job and everybody had to employ an accountant because the rules and regulations were beyond human comprehension. There’s the eugenic angle, too.”
“That’s what I mean. I’m beginning to think the eugenic side is more important than the revenue.”
“There isn’t any revenue, Aubry. It’s all on paper, a computation by an electronic brain. Productivity and service is the real monetary system of the tax, and that’s where the eugenic element comes in.”
Aubretia abandoned the discussion for a while and scanned a picture magazine, but the three-dimensional colour photo graphs were uninteresting. Even the nude stills of the erotic dancer known as Luella III, who was reputed to have the longest legs and the widest thighs in the Western hemisphere, failed to attract a second glance. Valinia had considerably more essential erotic fire in the touch of her little finger.
Presently her mind disassociated itself from the pages of the magazine and returned to the darker problem of mortics. She considered the basic principle: that all individuals from birth have a certain monetary value to the State, based on the service they render and the productivity they can achieve in terms of work. At the moment of birth a woman might have an immense potential value, for her future achievements were unknown; at the instant of death, how ever, her value was nil, for her service to the State had come to a stop. Between those two extremes lay a lifetime of labour and applied effort, mental or physical, that formed the basic economic unit of a functioning society.
Translating the abstract into the concrete was a complex matter, and the Department of Mortic Revenue had solved the problem to some extent by devising arbitrary standards. There was, for instance, the fundamental unit assessment. Every individual, and every child at birth, had a price on her head, an assessment in terms of dollars based on the average expected productivity of any single citizen. Nobody knew the exact figure. It varied from year to year, depending on the economic climate of the State and the world as a whole. But it might, for instance, be eight hundred thousand dollars. The figure was carefully calculated by a bank of electronic computers in a secret government department.
The general theory, as Aubretia understood it, was that during a normal lifetime (eighty years, according to the Statistical Division of the Department of Mortic Revenue) a normal citizen should, without undue self-sacrifice, be able to provide eight hundred thousand dollars worth of service or productivity for the benefit of the State. She was, however, rather vague about what would happen if the hypothetical citizen failed to attain her target, or, on the other hand, exceeded it. And it seemed to her that Valinia, whose knowledge of governmental administration was apparently as profound as her grasp of erotic techniques, might be able to clarify some of the more obscure points.
“Valy,” she said, jettisoning the magazine, “when you said just now that there isn’t any revenue, what exactly did you mean?”
Valinia, who had been watching the video screen in a desultory fashion, collected her thoughts and said, “Perhaps that wasn’t quite accurate. Suppose I pay you to do a job for me, do I get any revenue out of it?”
“Well… no.”
“But you do.”
“Yes.”
Valinia smiled subtly. “You’re wrong, Aubry. If I pay you to do a job, then it is a principle of human labour relations that the job is worth more to me than I pay to you. The revenue comes to me. It isn’t in money, but in service. That’s the basic principle of mortic revenue, and it’s the only kind of revenue that matters in the last analysis- Service and productivity.”
“But supposing a citizen is unproductive and opposed to service.”
“The same rules apply, Aubry. Antisocial types have the same tax assessment as normal citizens, but they suffer in a number of obvious ways. In the first place the salary they are permitted to draw from the State depends entirely upon their service or productivity factor. Those who work hard can draw more money so that they enjoy a higher standard of living. The shirkers draw less, and their standard of living is obviously lower.
“I see. It’s a sort of self-balancing arrangement. But I still can’t understand how the tax operates.”
Valinia stroked her legs idly. “It’s quite simple, Aubry. Everyone has an assessment. If they fail to produce or serve to the value of the assessment then they are in debt to the State. The figures are computed by electronic brains for every individual. If I were idle, for example, the State might assume that I was unproductive to the extent of, say, twenty thousand dollars.”
Aubretia tried to understand, but the concept eluded her probing mind. “How could you possibly repay that amount?” she asked.
“By working harder.”
“But suppose you didn’t want to work harder; suppose you preferred to exist as a parasite.”
“In that case the State would readjust the only other variable in order to balance the mortic revenue assessment. Life itself.”
Aubretia stared at her friend a little aghast, not fully understanding.
“You mean that the State would destroy the non-productive individuals?”
“Not the State, darling, the Department of Mortic Revenue. Every individual must fulfil her mortic assessment on a pro rata basis. The productive types live long and draw high salaries. The antisocial types draw low salaries and live a short, idle life. Their length of life is proportional to their productive capacity. For example, a woman who is euthanized at thirty will be found to have a service factor that could not produce more than three hundred thousand dollars worth of productivity during an average eighty year life time.”
Aubretia began to walk around the room, conscious of a certain sensation of doubt and misgiving. “It seems to me,” she observed, “that the State tends to regard life as a kind of mathematical equation: dollars versus productivity.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t really know. It just seems wrong in principle.”
Valinia stood up, smiling, and came over to Aubretia, putting her arms around her affectionately. Aubretia was conscious of the warmth of her body. Her sensual acuity sharpened. She responded warmly, stroking her friend’s arm.
Valinia said: “The State has to deal with nearly one hundred million women in this country alone. It has to deal with figures on a statistical basis. The whole basis of mortic revenue is to provide individuals with a strong incentive to be come good citizens, to give service and to be productive. The standard required is moderate. You and I and millions of others can attain it quite easily. Those who fail are those who are least useful to all of us, to society as a whole: the idle and lazy people, the criminals, the subversive types, the political intriguers. All these tend to undermine the stability of our way of life. Do you understand, Aubry?”
Aubretia nodded slowly. The abstract problems of mortic revenue were beginning to evaporate and they no longer seemed important in Valinia’s vital presence. Valinia came closer to her until her lips were a fraction of an inch away. They kissed.
“You worry too much, darling,” Valinia murmured.
Aubretia said nothing.
’Let’s forget about mortic revenue,” Valinia whispered intimately “It can’t affect either of us ever.”