‘We’re near the beginning of the Fourth Millennium. Believe me – you left Earth almost a thousand years ago.’
‘I believe you,’ Poole answered calmly. Then, to his great annoyance, the room started to spin around him, and he knew nothing more.
When he regained consciousness, he found that he was no longer in a bleak hospital room but in a luxurious suite with attractive – and steadily changing – images on the walls. Some of these were famous and familiar paintings, others showed land and sea-scapes that might have been from his own time. There was nothing alien or upsetting: that, he guessed, would come later.
His present surroundings had obviously been carefully programmed: he wondered if there was the equivalent of a television screen somewhere (how many channels would the Fourth Millennium have?) but could see no sign of any controls near his bed. There was so much he would have to learn in this new world: he was a savage who had suddenly encountered civilization.
But first, he must regain his strength – and learn the language; not even the advent of sound recording, already more than a century old when Poole was born, had prevented major changes in grammar and pronunciation. And there were thousands of new words, mostly from science and technology, though often he was able to make a shrewd guess at their meaning.
More frustrating, however, were the myriad of famous and infamous personal names that had accumulated over the millennium, and which meant nothing to him. For weeks, until he had built up a data bank, most of his conversations had to be interrupted with potted biographies. As Poole’s strength increased, so did the number of his visitors, though always under Professor Anderson’s watchful eye. They included medical specialists, scholars of several disciplines, and – of the greatest interest to him – spacecraft commanders.
There was little that he could tell the doctors and historians that was not recorded somewhere in Mankind’s gigantic data banks, but he was often able to give them research shortcuts and new insights about the events of his own time. Though they all treated him with the utmost respect and listened patiently as he tried to answer their questions, they seemed reluctant to answer his. Poole began to feel that he was being over-protected from culture shock, and half-seriously wondered how he could escape from his suite. On the few occasions he was alone, he was not surprised to discover that the door was locked.
Then the arrival of Doctor Indra Wallace changed everything. Despite her name, her chief racial component appeared to be Japanese, and there were times when with just a little imagination Poole could picture her as a rather mature Geisha Girl. It was hardly an appropriate image for a distinguished historian, holding a Virtual Chair at a university still boasting real ivy.
She was the first visitor with a fluent command of Poole’s own English, so he was delighted to meet her.
‘Mr Poole,’ she began, in a very business-like voice, ‘I’ve been appointed your official guide and – let’s say – mentor. My qualifications – I’ve specialized in your period – my thesis was “The Collapse of the Nation-State, 2000-50”. 1 believe we can help each other in many ways.’
‘I’m sure we can. First I’d like you to get me out of here, so I can see a little of your world.’
‘Exactly what we intend to do. But first we must give you an Ident. Until then you’ll be – what was the term? -a non-person. It would be almost impossible for you to go anywhere, or get anything done. No input device would recognize your existence.’
‘Just what I expected,’ Poole answered, with a wry smile. ‘It was starting to get that way in my own time – and many people hated the idea.’
‘Some still do. They go off and live in the wilderness – there’s a lot more on Earth than there was in your century! But they always take their compaks with them, so they can call for help as soon as they get into trouble. The median time is about five days.’
‘Sorry to hear that. The human race has obviously deteriorated.’
He was cautiously testing her, trying to find the limits of her tolerance and to map out her personality. It was obvious that they were going to spend much time together, and that he would have to depend upon her in hundreds of ways. Yet he was still not sure if he would even like her: perhaps she regarded him merely as a fascinating museum exhibit.
Rather to Poole’s surprise, she agreed with his criticism.
‘That may be true – in some respects. Perhaps we’re physically weaker, but we’re healthier and better adjusted than most humans who have ever lived. The Noble Savage was always a myth’.
She walked over to a small rectangular plate, set at eye-level in the door. It was about the size of one of the countless magazines that had proliferated in the far-off Age of Print, and Poole had noticed that every room seemed to have at least one. Usually they were blank, but sometimes they contained lines of slowly scrolling text, completely meaningless to Poole even when most of the words were familiar. Once a plate in his suite had emitted urgent beepings, which he had ignored on the assumption that someone else would deal with the problem, whatever it was. Fortunately the noise stopped as abruptly as it had started.
Dr Wallace laid the palm of her hand upon the plate, then removed it after a few seconds. She glanced at Poole, and said smilingly: ‘Come and look at this.’
The inscription that had suddenly appeared made a good deal of sense, when he read it slowly:WALLACE, INDRA [F2970.03.11 :31.885 HIST.OXFORD] ‘I suppose it means Female, date of birth 11 March 2970 – and that you’re associated with the Department of History at Oxford. And I guess that 31.885 is a personal identification number. Correct?’
‘Excellent, Mr Poole. I’ve seen some of your e-mail addresses and credit card numbers – hideous strings of alpha-numeric gibberish that no one could possibly remember! But we all know our date of birth, and not more than 99,999 other people will share it. So a five-figure number is all you’ll ever need… and even if you forget that, it doesn’t really matter. As you see, it’s a part of you.’
‘Implant?’
‘Yes – nanochip at birth, one in each palm for redundancy. You won’t even feel yours when it goes in. But you’ve given us a small problem…’
‘What’s that?’
‘The readers you’ll meet most of the time are too simple-minded to believe your date of birth. So, with your permission, we’ve moved it up a thousand years.’
‘Permission granted. And the rest of the Ident?’
‘Optional. You can leave it empty, give your current interests and location – or use it for personal messages, global or targeted.’
Some things, Poole was quite sure, would not have changed over the centuries. A high proportion of those ‘targeted’ messages would be very personal indeed.
He wondered if there were still self or state-appointed censors in this day and age – and if their efforts at improving other people’s morals had been more successful than in his own time.
He would have to ask Dr Wallace about that, when he got to know her better.
4
A Room with a View
‘Frank – Professor Anderson thinks you’re strong enough to go for a little walk.’
‘I’m very pleased to hear it. Do you know the expression “stir crazy”?’
‘No – but I can guess what it means.’
Poole had so adapted to the low gravity that the long strides he was taking seemed perfectly normal. Half a gee, he had estimated – just right to give a sense of well-being. They met only a few people on their walk, all of them strangers, but every one gave a smile of recognition. By now, Poole told himself with a trace of smugness, I must be one of the best-known celebrities in this world. That should be a great help – when I decide what to do with the rest of my life. At least another century, if I can believe Anderson.
The corridor along which they were walking was completely featureless apart from occasional numbered doors, each bearing one of the universal recog panels. Poole had followed Indra for perhaps two hundred metres when he came to a sudden halt, shocked because he had not realized something so blindingly obvious.
‘This space-station must be enormous!’ he exclaimed. Indra smiled back at him.
‘Didn’t you have a saying – “You ain’t seen anything yet”?’
‘“Nothing”,’ he corrected, absent-mindedly. He was still trying to estimate the scale of this structure when he had another surprise. Who would have imagined a space-station large enough to boast a subway – admittedly a miniature one, with a single small coach capable of seating only a dozen passengers.