After religion I went down to Eastriver to meet Keyes. Eastriver is a small city in itself, built over the East River about twenty years ago by a group of real estate developers. The developers went bankrupt and the courts still haven’t sorted out the mess. So the place has a temporary, unfinished quality to it. No big buildings; whole blocks of empty space. Some places the foamsteel construction of the bridge itself is only covered by safety gratings. You can watch the river traffic toiling by under your feet.
I met Keyes at a place called the Grapeseed Revenge. It sits in one corner of a building that evidently will someday be a warehouse, taking up maybe one-twentieth of the shell’s volume. The acoustics are incredible.
No revolutionary cabal would dare meet in a place like this; it looks too much the part. The only light comes from a candle on each table. The chairs and tables are random mismatched castoffs. Huddled groups talk in low tones. I expected to see pictures of Kowalski and Lenin on the walls.
Keyes found me while I was still groping blindly through the darkness, before my eyes adjusted to the candlelight. She led me to a table (an old door on legs, actually) and introduced me to three friends.
One of them did look like a revolutionary. His name was Will, no last name or line name offered. His face looked small, framed by an unruly cloud of hair and beard; he was slight, bony, quick-moving. He was wearing laborer’s overalls (but when I asked what he did he said “sit and think”). The other two were students, Lillian Sterne and Mohammed Twelve. They treated one another with casual affection, like long-time lovers. Lillian is small, blond, and pale as a Yorker; Mohammed is big and black. He was surprised, and pleased, that I knew how important the name Twelve was in African history. His great-grand-father’s brother. That was a bloody time.
I went through the same sort of quizzing that Keyes had done, mostly from Will. He was didactic and hostile, but intelligent. When he talked, all the others listened carefully. He was obviously used to leading.
I’m afraid I was guilty of coloring my responses—not really lying, but feeding him what he wanted to hear, pushing him. For instance:
Wilclass="underline" Suppose one or both of the Coordinators were dishonest—
Me: They’re politicians.
Wilclass="underline" Right. What stops them from making vast personal fortunes from import and export?
Me: Ten billion dollars a week goes through their hands.
Wilclass="underline" And they have the final say as to suppliers and customers, on Earth.
Me: They oversee the Import-Export Board.
Wilclass="underline" I wonder how much someone would pay for, say, the franchise on oxygen.
Me: Hydrogen; we make our own oxygen. They’d pay plenty, I’m sure.
And so forth. What I didn’t say was, for instance, no actual money changes hands for hydrogen; it’s a straight barter with U.S. Steel. There’s no doubt a Coordinator could skim off millions—but what could you do with it? Count it? You’d have to go to Earth or Devon’s World to spend it, and people would probably find out, since ex-Coordinators automatically join the Privy Council. They’d miss your vote.
(The idea of personal wealth certainly distorts Earth politics—what an understatement—but I don’t suppose our system would work with billions of people.)
It was interesting, though. You don’t meet many real political dissidents in the Worlds; too easy to go someplace else if you don’t like it at home (it strikes me suddenly that there is more political variety in the Worlds than the Earth has had for a century). The Grapeseed Revenge is the quietest bar I’ve found in New York, by far, and the cheapest Large glass of drinkable wine for three dollars. I’ll take Benny next time.
19 Sept. The new politics course is interesting. The stodgy old Lobbies evolved from a bunch of real pirates—I knew that from University, but it’s fun to go into the actual details of blackmail and bribery. American history is so rich with nasty treasures!
Watched Jules Hammond at the Worlds Club meeting again. Checked my pulse; still not thrilled. Meeting shifted to Wednesday next week, for the elections.
Claire Oswald told me I should be careful about the company I keep. She’s on Keyes’s floor, and Keyes is not the most adored person there. Dolores added that the Grapeseed might be watched, and I am after all an alien.
Maybe I should take Hawkings there instead of Benny. See if he says hello to anyone.
20 Sept. Small world, as they say on this big world. Benny goes to the Grapeseed all the time. Has met Will, doesn’t like him. Was going to ask me to go there, once he was sure I’d be “comfortable.”
I kidded him about being a poet and political at the same time; he said he was an unacknowledged legislator of his times. That must be a quote I’m supposed to know.
We had dinner at the dormitory machines and went on down to the Grapeseed. It’s pretty crowded at night. Will wasn’t there, for which I was doubly glad, but Lillian and Mohammed were; we sat and talked for a couple of hours.
They’re a beautiful couple, not only because they look so arresting together. They’ve only known each other seven months but fit like gears meshing.
They talked about emigrating to Tsiolkovski. I tried to talk them out of it. It’s such a joyless, hard place. They keep expanding without ever consolidating, trying to make life comfortable. Maybe I just lack pioneer spirit.
It’s unlikely they’d be acceptable, anyhow. I don’t think they’ll pay your way up unless both of you have a skill they need. Mohammed is in philosophy, ethics. Lillian’s a double E, electrical engineering, but she’s also Jewish. Not a believer, she says, but it would still be a mark against her. They don’t like conflicting loyalties.
I did tell them about the Mutual Immigration Pact. If they could get up to New New, or any other World, and become bona fide citizens, then Tsiolkovski would have to take them. Not with open arms, though. Every World needs somebody to shovel shit, and that’s exactly what they’d do for the rest of their lives.
I didn’t convince them, but maybe I planted a seed. I’d love to see them in the Worlds, but not Tsiolkovski. Not smothered under the blanket of a grey old revolution.
I got the feeling that there’s something going on that I don’t know about. Maybe Dolores’s warning made me a bit paranoid. But there was something in the way that Lillian and Mohammed and Benny looked at each other. Maybe it’s because Benny was so serious. Just a feeling.
One of Poe’s stories, “The Purloined Letter,” claims that the best place to hide something is to leave it in plain sight Maybe the Grapeseed Revenge is full of revolutionaries.
It was after two when we left, so Benny and his conspicuous knife accompanied me home. We had a cup of tea in my room; talked about the James and Fitzgerald readings. He was his old self, witty and animated. I was sort of expecting a sexual overture—inviting one, maybe—but nothing happened. Maybe Benny’s homosexual, or celibate. Maybe I’m not the most ravishing creature in the World, I mean world. (Have to go reread Daniel’s last letter, for confidence.)
21 Sept. Didn’t mention that before I met Benny yesterday I talked to Hawkings and Lou, at the seminar, and they suggested that I try out some sport that doesn’t involve trajectories—if I learn how to play handball or volleyball here, I’ll just have to start all over again when I get home.
Hawkings suggested fencing. (He was appalled to find out that I didn’t know how to handle any kind of weapon; I’m afraid I laughed out loud.) There’s a beginners’ group that meets every Thursday morning, so I went down there today.