The Life of the World to Come (16 page)

Read The Life of the World to Come Online

Authors: Kage Baker

Tags: #Adult, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Fantasy, #C429, #Extratorrents, #Kat, #Travel

BOOK: The Life of the World to Come
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He settled awkwardly into his seat and started the agmotor. Much too quickly for his liking, the car rose up and sped away with him. Just past Piccadilly Circus he realized he was in trouble, and as they zoomed around the corner into St. James Street the evidence was undeniable.
“Lean out to leeward, you damned fool,” the Captain said.
He was profoundly grateful that the streets were deserted as his breakfast rushed into midair and hung there a moment; then, as the car whisked him onward at such a speed that the breakfast vanished behind him without landing on him or his car, he was rather sorry that nobody had been there to witness the amazing accomplishment. And he felt great now!
He was whistling as they reached the designated youth zone and pulled into the car park. The car sank down and he hopped out, sauntering into the Dialogue Gardens.
Most of his Circle were already assembled in their customary place under the big plane tree. “Sorry I’m late, everybody,” he said.
“You’re not late, Checkerfield,” Blaise said. Blaise was the dialogue leader. “Balkister, on the other hand, will almost certainly be late. Not one to change his habits, our worthy friend.”
“What have you been doing?” murmured Jill Courtenay, rising to pull him to a seat beside her. She was the one he was serious about, and she was even more serious about him. “You’re rather pale.”
“The car went too fast,” he said.
“Idiot,” she said. She had very dark blue eyes with black lashes. While they had a tendency to look steely, she was being affectionate at the moment. She took his hand in her own. He kissed her neck, breathing in her scent. She smelled comforting. Across the circle, Colin Debenham stared at her longingly.
“Good God, history is about to be made,” drawled Blaise. “Attention, assembled autocrats-in-training: Balkister is about to grace us with his punctual presence. No applause, now. You know how adulation embarrasses him.” They all looked up to see the enormous and colorful ex-parcel delivery van that came roaring into the car park. Balkister had painted it himself, with murals depicting great victories for the oppressed masses throughout history. It settled to the pavement with a crash. Several Francophone Canadians were obscured as the driver’s side panel swung open across them, and Giles Balkister made his entrance.
He was small of stature, and unfortunately not proportioned well; very little of what height he possessed was in his legs. He was rather spotty, too. What he lacked in personal attractiveness he made up for in talent, however. Everybody thought so, including Alec, who was his best friend. Alec was always a little in awe of people who could read and write, though it was considered a menial skill.
“
Thank
you,” said Blaise, after watching him toil across the garden. “Please don’t rush on our account.”
“Oh, bugger off,” Balkister snapped. “Why don’t you start a dialogue?”
“What a good idea,” said Blaise. “Girls and boys, a brief announcement first: we’re hosting next month’s swing gaskell for the Wimbledon Thirty at McCartney Hall. Fifty pounds per member ought to cover expenses in style. Who’ll volunteer for the decorations committee?”
Jill squeezed Alec’s hand and looked at him in meaningful delight. A gaskell was a retro dance party, usually in appropriate period costume, and swing had been the rage in the better circles for some months now. Alec grinned back at her. He was in great demand as a dance partner—for one thing, he was one of the few men in London physically large enough to pick up and flip a partner in the complicated maneuvers swing required—and Jill was a brilliant historical costumer. They’d won prizes at the last two gaskells they’d attended.
“I’ll volunteer,” said Balkister. Heads turned and disapproving stares pierced him through.
“I don’t think so,” said Marilyn Deighton-True. “I can just see McCartney Hall now, festooned with socialiste nouveau slogans.”
“And if?” said Balkister. “Can you think of a better place to hang them than in the faces of the frivolous rulers of tomorrow, participating in effete historical reenactments as Rome burns?”
“Don’t be stupid, Balkister, it’s only a dance,” said Colin Debenham.
“It’s a dead and meaningless dance, pulled from the dustbin of history, performed in the decadent drag of a properly vanished empire!” Balkister said.
“Oh, whoever heard of a meaningful dance anyway?” Jill said. “Besides, you know you’ve never missed one.”
“I’m bearing witness,” Balkister said, but he was booed down by the others. Various people with a lot of early twentieth-century furniture in their ancestral homes volunteered to bring pieces down for set decoration, somebody else agreed to handle the refreshments, and an appropriate art deco invitation design was agreed upon.
Nearly every social event anybody threw in the twenty-fourth century was historically themed. Most people, if asked why historical reenactment was so popular, would have replied that the present age was
boring
. The truth, however,
was more complicated and consequently even more boring, a societal phenomenon that had been set in motion centuries earlier:
With the invention of printing, mass standardized culture had become possible.
With the inventions of photography and then cinema, the standardization of popular culture began to progress geometrically and its rate of change slowed down.
In addition, the complete documentation of daily life made possible by these technological advances presented the mass of humanity, for the first time in history, with a mirror in which to regard itself. Less and less had it been able to look away, as its own image became more detailed and perfect, especially with the burden of information that became available at the end of the twentieth century.
What this meant, in practical terms, was that retro was the only fashion. Smart young things everywhere would much prefer to be dancing on a reconstruction of the
Titanic,
or wearing First Regency frock coats and gowns as they sipped tea, or wearing trench coats and fedoras as they pretended to solve mysteries, or reclining on Roman couches as they dined or
anything
rather than living in the mundane old twenty-fourth century. And, all things considered, they might be forgiven. It was a much more dangerous time than they were aware.
“All right then,” said Blaise at last, when the last of the party details had been hammered out. “Moving right along, let’s tackle our debate of the day. Topic for discussion: ought the administrative classes be required to obtain licenses for reproduction, as the consumer classes are presently required to do?”
“Absolutely,” said Balkister.
“Has anyone else an opinion?” Blaise looked around at the other members of the circle.
“I have, and I say absolutely not,” countered Dennis Neville. “We’re the only ones with any brains in this miserable little country, we do all the work, and why should we be forced to pay for the privilege of producing the next generation without whom everything would fall apart?”
“Oh, dear, has that been claimed before or what?” hooted Balkister. “You vile dinosaur. Privilege! Privilege! Can you
really sit there and tell me you’re better than the lowly consumer, whose sweating and oppressed ancestors built the throne on which you sit? Look at this insect on the leaf, peering down on his brethren in the dust and saying he’s more worthy of passing on his genes than they are!”
“Since when have the consumers built anything?” jeered Edgar Shotts-Morecambe. “In the last century, anyway?”
“Irrelevant,” said Balkister. “The issue at hand is the monstrous inequity of privilege. How, in this day and age, can any one of you claim to be better than your fellow human beings?”
“Because we are,” said Marilyn Deighton-True with a shrug. “Face reality, Giles, or it will face you. You can spout all the socialiste nouveau crap you like, but it simply doesn’t apply to a meritocracy.”
“Remember what happened the first time they abolished the House of Lords,” warned Elvis Churchill.
“The consumers have become the couch potatoes they are because they haven’t the willpower to be otherwise,” argued Deighton-True. “If you handed them the privileges we have and the responsibilities that go with them, they’d be horrified.”
There was some laughter and nodding agreement. Balkister did what he usually did at this point in a debate, which was turn to Alec in fierce appeal.
Ordinarily Alec would rise to his impressive height and say something suave in his impressive voice. He never had to say anything especially cogent, just draw the focus back to Balkister. This particular subject made him uncomfortable. Yet Balkister was looking at him expectantly, so he got to his feet.
“This is too bloody stupid, don’t you think?” he said. All faces turned to him at once. “You know perfectly well the admins would jump at an excuse not to have babies. Who wants all that noise and mess? Why not get rid of the whole permit thing, if you want to be fair to the consumers?”
“Bad move!”
said Balkister in alarm. The truth, which nobody wanted to acknowledge, was that the British Reproductive Bureau hadn’t issued a permit in five years, because nobody had applied for one. There was a frozen silence as thirty people silently acknowledged that Alec’s remark had
been quite true and in the worst of taste, and then the backlash set in.
“Are you out of your mind?” said Elvis Churchill. “When we’ve only just begun to pull ourselves out of the abyss of the past? Do you really want to see the world’s population out of control again?”
“No, of course not—”
“Why should he care?” said Diana Lewton-Bygraves. “He wouldn’t be enslaved by pregnancy, after all! He’ll never have to suffer through ten lunar months of hideous discomfort and physical distortion, oh no.”
“Techno-idiot,” muttered Colin Debenham.
“Math geek,” agreed Dennis Neville.
“Then make it all illegal!” said Alec, sitting down and folding his arms. “No permits for anybody, okay? That ought to suit you, and at least it’d be fair.”
“Checkerfield, are we going to have to explain what the big words mean again?” sneered Alistair Stede-Windsor.
“Hey!” Alec started up in his seat, his eyes going small and furious. Stede-Windsor shrank back; Alec had a reputation for his temper. He felt a tugging on his sleeve and subsided, as Balkister popped up again.
“What about it, ladies and gentlemen?” Balkister said. “Just how many of you were actually planning to endure, how did you put it, hideous discomfort and physical distortion so that your precious admin genes can be handed down to another generation of sniveling little dictators? Eh?”
“I certainly intend to have children,” Dennis Neville said. Heads turned.
“Child
ren
?” said Diana Lewton-Bygraves in an icy voice.
“Well, a child.”
“I’m certain we’ll all sleep better tonight knowing that.” Balkister smiled nastily. “Dennis Neville passes on the flaming torch of his genetic inheritance to prevent everything from falling apart!”
“All this shouting, and none of it means anything,” said Alec quietly. Jill squeezed his hand and stood up.
“Are any of you under the impression anybody can win this argument?” she said. “I never heard such bollocks in my
life. We’re all children of privilege! This debate is pointless until and unless it includes members of the consumer classes who can express their opinions on the subject.”
“Oh, good shot,” said Balkister, and Colin Debenham began to applaud wildly, and one by one the others in the group followed suit. The subject had begun to make too many of them acutely uncomfortable.
After they’d all broken up into socialization units, Blaise sidled over to Alec where he lay sprawled in the grass, his head pillowed in Jill’s lap.
“You okay, old man?” he said, sitting down and crossing his legs.
“Not like you to drop the ball like that,” said Balkister, tearing up a handful of grass and sorting through it bemusedly. “You’re so good at getting their attention, Checkerfield, but for God’s sake don’t spoil it by telling them the flat truth! Especially a truth they don’t want to hear. One never wins friends and influences people that way.”
“Shrack winning friends and influencing people,” said Alec. “What’s wrong with telling the truth?”
“You won’t take that tone in the House of Lords, I hope.” Blaise shook his head.
“Well, it bothered me,” Alec said, turning his face up to Jill. “You said it best, babe. What’s the point of all the talk? And nobody really wants kids. Even people who have ’em stay as far away as they can get, and mail presents now and then to pretend they care.” He thought bitterly of Roger.
“All the responsible family people have gone to Luna and Mars,” said Blaise.
“Ahh, Mars,” said Balkister, in the tone of voice in which people had used to say
Ahh, Maui
. “There’s where your real heroes are. Back to the basics and no mistakes this time. On Mars, proper civilization can begin. Look at the start they’ve made! No inherited privilege and no techno-hierarchy. Everything owned in common by the Martian Agricultural Collective.”

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