There might also be here criminals whom modern science could not rehabilitate. Whenever their particular drives could be eliminated and they would again become good citizens, they would be destoned. That was the officially proclaimed policy.
“This is a comparatively new storage place,” Locks said to Duncan. “The oldest here go back to about three hundred obyears ago. We’re in the oldest section, which means that nobody comes here.”
The air was fresh and moving. No doubt it was electronically filtered, but that had not kept dust from collecting on the bodies or on the floor. The band was making tracks in the dust. Locks, seeing Duncan look at these, said, “We’ll smoothe it out before we leave. Meanwhile…”
He waved his hand at the men and women running up and down the narrow aisles and at the two noisy children playing hide and seek. “It’s not like outdoors, but at least they have room to exercise, and they’re rid of the stale air.”
Duncan did not feel so buoyant and free. These ranks of the dead—well, most of them were not really dead—which could be brought back to life in a microsecond, depressed him. From somewhere came the knowledge that, the last he’d heard, there were over forty billion of these stoned in such places all over the world. All waiting for a restoration of life and health.
Wilde, smiling peculiarly, said, “No way will there ever be enough medical people and facilities to handle these. And where would they go, where be housed, where get the food, etcetera, if they were cured? Meanwhile, millions more are added every year. It wouldn’t matter if we had a different government, one that tried to bring them back into society. No government could handle them, and Earth isn’t big enough to house and feed them. They’d all starve to death.”
“In that case, forget about it,” Duncan said. He turned to Locks. “It’s evident that there are no monitors in this area. What about elsewhere?”
“Only the newest part, where the stones are brought in, is monitored. They’re digging near that, getting ready to build another storage facility.”
Locks grinned. “We’re safer here than any place I can think of. They won’t be looking for us here because they can’t imagine we’d move so close to them. There’s a ranger-agricultural-organics village only three miles from here. Come. I’ll show it to you.”
Before they started, Duncan saw a man, who had climbed a ladder to the ceiling, raise a section of it and go on through. Locks, following Duncan’s gaze, said, “If it’s all clear, we can go out into the woods. We need to get outside, especially the children.”
Duncan, accompanied by the padre and Wilde, went with the chief down the central aisle of what he knew were not statues but could not help thinking of as such. After a mile of walking, they came to a wall. Locks opened a small door inset in one of the enormous closed gates. Beyond it was another facility. This, Locks said, had three subbasements below the main floor. It also held six levels, open on the sides, all containing the stoned bodies. After walking down the central aisle, Locks turned and went through row after row, stopping when he came to an open elevator against the wall. The four got onto it and went to the top of the level. A tall window here gave Duncan a view of the surrounding scenery. Apparently, the upper end of the facility projected from the ground. Below him, the ground slanted steeply a hundred feet, then leveled out and became a plain across which he could see another range of hills about five miles away. These were heavily forested, and there were many groves on the plain. But most of the land was for farming. In the center of the valley was a village of a hundred or so houses dominated by a white five-story building, square, its energy panels shining in the morning sun. Around it was a circular area ringed by white houses with green roofs. Their architecture, however, varied widely. The backs of the houses were on another circular street, across which were the fronts of other houses. The whole village was composed of streets that were concentric circles. Locks handed Duncan binoculars so that he could get a closer view. There were people moving around and in them, several small children playing in the yards, and men and women driving out of or into the village.
Sweeping across the valley with the glasses, Duncan saw at closer range the small farmhouses, the larger barns and silos, and various types of farm machinery moving out over the fields or parked within enclosures. He knew, though he did not know how, that the small houses were not for residency. They contained the computers by which the farmers remotely controlled the robot plowers, seeders, tillers, sprayers, and other machines. When the farmers were through for the day, they would drive back into town. There were, however, near the town, gardens that were the individual property of the farmers.
Here and there were cows, kept to provide milk for the locals and manure for the fields. There were also chickens running around inside enclosures. These were kept only for their eggs. Animals were no longer slaughtered for their flesh; beef and chicken flesh was grown in cloning factories. No doubt there was one here, but it would be underground.
Duncan handed the binoculars back to Locks. “Looks pretty quiet and peaceful.”
The Decider smiled and said, “The organics and rangers are all out looking for us.”
He pointed at the far hills. “Over on the other side is the intercontinental train line.”
Duncan indicated the main road, a shimmering gray ribbon that ran straight through the woods, swerved outside the village, and plunged onward through the farms. “Is that used to bring in the stoned?”
“No. A government dirigible hauls them in. There’s a mooring tower on top of this building.”
“Could I go into the newest building?”
“Why?” Locks said.
“I just want to get the layout hereabouts. You never know when it’ll come in handy.”
“For escape, you mean?”
“Not from you,” Duncan said. “I mean in case the organics caught us by surprise.”
“Of course,” Locks said. “Sure, why not? The monitors are set for detecting people trying to break in. They’re not the least worried about the occupants breaking out. Though they should be.”
They went down to the main floor and then through two gigantic buildings, each of which also contained twelve stories, before they got to the newest facility. Again, they took an elevator. Locks led them into an office complex where they sat around for a while in the most luxurious office. It was seldom used now but was provided with a stoner and plenty of food and liquor in stoned form. Using one of the stoners—these were everywhere throughout the facilities—they activated the normal molecular motion of some supplies and ate seafood, salad, and potatoes and drank beer and wine.
The only thing that kept Duncan from complete ease was the trembling of the far wall and a dull roaring. Locks told him that these were vibrations from the excavation operations near this building. “There’s an army of workers out there.”
Duncan drank beer and felt more relaxed. He waved his hand to indicate the computer wall screens and the instruction boards on the desks. “Could you use these without setting off alarms?”
“Sure,” Locks said. “In fact, that’s why I came here.”
He swiveled his chair, set down his bottle of wine, and punched on the control board. “Luckily, no code is needed to activate this. The officials never dreamed that any unauthorized persons would be using this. After all, this is a little-populated rural area. Besides, you have to have the code to enter the building. Or so they think. First, we’ll start the monitors and see what’s going on outside.”
Apparently this also did not need a code. He said, “T3C6. Command. Turn on the local area view monitors.”
Immediately, the blank walls became screens, and Duncan saw the areas outside of each of the four sides of the facility.
Locks straightened up and said, “Oh, oh!”
7
The western screen displayed a silvery dirigible, its nose down, flying at about a hundred feet above the ground. It was proceeding slowly, its jet engines shining on the southern side, the lo
cking device in its nose open. Duncan could see the tiny figures of the bridge crew behind the viewshield in the upper part near the nose.
“They’re delivering another load of stoned,” Locks said. He erased the recording of the recent activation and turned the power off. He stood up and said, “Get the trays and bottles. We don’t want to leave any evidence behind.”
The others followed him out of the office. Duncan said, “What does this mean?”
Wilde replied, “We have to hide for a while. It doesn’t take them long, maybe two hours, to unload their cargo. But we’ll lie low until tomorrow.”
It was then that Duncan decided that he was not going to stay with this group any longer than he had to. It had no future. All they could do was run and hide and steal outdoors for a few hours in the open or into storage facilities. This was a rabbit’s life, and he was no rabbit.
Nevertheless, for the time being, he had to be with the band. Reluctantly, he went back down the shaft into the room at its bottom. He sat down on his sleeping bag, his back against a wall, and sourly regarded the others. This room was crowded, and the children insisted on running around—he couldn’t blame them for that and felt sorry for them—and there was little to do except drink and talk. Now and then, he got up and went for a walk down the tunnel to stretch his legs. The third time, he was doing sitting-up exercises in the dark when a light blazed in his eyes. Though he did not stop his situps, he said, “Who’s there?”
Locks identified himself. He sat down, saying, “Don’t let me stop you.”
Panting, Duncan rose and did some rope-skipping without a rope. He said, “I noticed you looking rather thoughtfully at me in the control room.”
Locks kept the light on Duncan’s face, half-blinding and completely annoying him. Duncan said, “You can shine that away from me and still see my expressions.”
Locks chuckled and pointed the beam at the wall. Now Duncan could also see his face.
“You probably think we live a rather useless futile life, right? After all, what do we do except keep on the run? What use are we? We don’t like the government, we resent being forced to live only one day a week, and we hate being observed all the time. But what do we do to break the status quo? Wouldn’t we be more useful,’ and also far more comfortable, if we kept within the confines of normal life and used constitutional and legal means to protest?”
Duncan quit exercising and sat down. “Yes, I’ve thought that.”
“After all,” Locks said, “just what are we protesting about? Why kick against the pricks when there’s so little to kick against? We are citizens of a society that has never existed before, a society in which not only does no one starve but every person has all the food he can wish for. Good food, good housing, good medical service, good educational opportunities. All the luxuries one could reasonably hope for. There is no war and no prospect of any. We’re taxed, yes, but reasonably so. The rate of crime is the lowest of any society in history. There’s only one lawyer to every thirty thousand people. Racism is dead. Women have full equality. Almost all diseases have been eliminated. Child abuse and rape are rare. The poisonous seas, land, and air our ancestors bequeathed us have been cleaned up. The great deserts are being restocked with trees. We have as near a Utopia as is possible, given the irrationality, greed, stupidity, and self-centeredness inborn in so many people.”
“You make a good case for loving our government,” Duncan said.
“It was some ancient author, don’t remember his name, who said that you should hate every government currently in power. By that, he meant that no government is perfect and citizens should strive to rid government of its flaws and evils. By those, I mean not just institutionalized faults but those people in power who take advantage of the faults to advance their own interests and those who are incompetent.”
“Sounds correct,” Duncan said. “But is it necessary that the government keep such a close eye on its citizens, never stop looking over their shoulders? Isn’t that a quality to hate?”
“Ah, but the government says it’s absolutely necessary. It prevents crime and accidents, and it enables the state to ensure peace and prosperity. By knowing what every citizen is doing at every moment of the day—most of the moments, anyway—that he is outside his house, the state has the data to ensure that its citizens are safe and that raw materials and finished goods flow in the proper traffic routes all over the world. It—”
“I don’t need examples or a lecture,” Duncan said. “What are you getting at?”
“Everyone over twenty-five years of age who can also pass an examination on knowledge of history and political conditions can vote. There are three major political parties and a hundred minor ones. The votes are registered from the voters’ homes—”
“No lecture,” Duncan said.
“I was just trying to demonstrate that our government is the first really democratic government. The state is run for the people by the people. Or so the government claims. If the people aren’t satisfied with the way the state is run, then they demand and get an election so they can change the administrators or change the laws. So the government claims.
“But the people in power control the computers that report the results of the elections. Why is it, then, that for the past two hundred obyears, the voters have always voted to maintain the close monitoring of themselves? Why do so many of the world government officials stay in power? Why is there always a definite majority of votes in favor of these candidates?”
“A lot of people believe that the computers don’t give the correct numbers,” Duncan said.
“Yes, many do believe that. So many that it seems odd that the majority opinion isn’t reflected in the vote tally.”
“The government takes polls now and then to investigate just that belief. These always show that there aren’t that many people who believe that the results are fixed or that there’s fraud involved.”
Locks smiled and said, “What’s to keep the opinion polls from being fixed?”
“I’m not arguing with you that they are honest. Only…”
“Only?”
“What can we do about it?” Duncan said.
“Apparently, nothing. There’s not enough desire for reform to cause riots, strikes, a revolution. Maybe over half of the population is convinced that changes should be made and that the present administrators—rulers better defines them—should be ousted. But they don’t have any real grievances, not like the ancients did, anyway. Even if they’re irked by certain restrictions, why kick a hole in the boat?”
“Why, indeed?”
Duncan was silent for a moment while Locks stared at him. Then he said, “I’m like a newborn who nevertheless has memories of past lives. It seems to me…”
He wrinkled his brow and chewed on his lip for a few seconds.
“I wish I could remember why the government is so hot to get hold of me. However, I do remember that I’ve had doubts about other things than election frauds. One…wait a minute…now it’s coming. The state keeps hammering on the thesis that the earth must never become overpopulated again. No couple is allowed to have more than two children. In view of what happened to the world in former eras, that seems like a very logical and necessary restriction. But a lot of us…”
Duncan looked as if he was straining his mental muscles. Locks said, “A lot of people…”
“…are not sure that the population statistics are correct. They may be overhigh. If the truth were known, the government might have to allow more than two children, three, at least, to each pair of parents.”
“The truth is,” Locks said, “at least, my information is, that the present global population is two billion. Whereas—”
“The official statistics say eight billion!” Duncan said loudly.
Locks was not so much shocked that he did not wonder how this outlaw, isolated from the data bank systems, could know this. “Two billion,” he said. “What was the second thing bothering you?”
“With only two billion people, there’s no reason to maintain the daykeeping system! It should be abandoned. We can all go back to the ancient system of living every day of the week. It would have to phase in gradually, of course. Seven times as many houses would have to be built. Everything would have to be increased by seven, food supplies, transportation facilities, power supplies, everything. It’d take a long time to do that. There’d be a hell of a lot of problems but nothing that couldn’t be solved. Then humanity could get back to the natural system, the way of living meant for people. I…”
He wrinkled his brow again, was silent for a moment, then said, “It seems to me that I knew…somebody told me…that the daykeeping system breaks up the circadian rhythm for humans. Whereas people used to sleep eight hours or so a night without a break, now they often have to sleep four hours or so, then get up and get the other four hours as they can. This has resulted in far more neurotics and mental breakdowns than the government allows the public to know. In fact, the crimes of passion, so called, have been increasing for quite a while. But the public isn’t informed about that. It’s fed false data, and the news media are kept from reporting many of these cases.”
“We’re guaranteed freedom of the news media,” Locks said, “whereas, in fact, we don’t have it. But the government is very subtle about its repression. The state has the guile of the serpent, the wisdom of the dove.
“One thing hasn’t changed, though. The majority of the population has always been conservative. That seems to have been true from the beginning of the history of government. The daykeeping system has been with us so long that most people regard it as natural. The way things should be. Even if the government wanted to go back to the old system—it doesn’t, of course—it would have a hard time convincing the majority that it should be done.”
By now, Duncan knew that Locks was not just talking to pass the time. He said, “You’re far more than you appear to be, aren’t you?”
Locks grinned. “You mean I’m not just the leader of a bunch of scraggly and pathetic misfits? What do you think I am—in reality?”