This I understood. I had been so indignant at that filthy notion that for a moment I had ceased to think like a courier.
We crossed the border into Vegas Free State at Dry Lake; the capsule stopped just long enough for Confederacy exit stamps. Each of us used an alternate passport with the standard squeeze folded insideÄno trouble. And no entrance stamp as the Free State doesn’t bother with CHI; they welcome any solvent visitor.
Ten minutes later we checked into the Dunes, with much the same accommodations we had had in San Jose save that this was described as an “orgy suite.” I could not see why. A mirror on the ceiling and aspirin and Alka-Seltzer in the bath are not enough to justify that designation; my doxyology instructor would have laughed in scorn. However I suppose that most of the marks would not have had the advantages of advanced instructionÄI’ve been told that most people don’t have any formal training. I’ve often wondered who teaches them. Their parents? Is that rigid incest taboo among human persons actually a taboo against talking about it but not against doing it?
Someday I hope to find out such things but I’ve never known anybody I could ask. Maybe Janet will tell me. Someday .
We arranged to meet for dinner, then Burt and Anna went to the lounge and/or casino while Goldie and I went out to the Industrial Park. Burt intended to job-hunt but expressed an intention of raising a little hell before settling down. Anna said nothing but I think she wanted to savor the fleshpots before taking up the life of a grandmother-in-residence. Only Goldie was dead-serious about jobhunting that day. I intended to find a job, yesÄbut I had some thinking to do first.
I was probablyÄalmost certainlyÄgoing to out-migrate. Boss thought I should and that was reason enough. But besides that, the study he had started me on concerning the symptoms of decay in cultures had focused my mind on things I had long known but never analyzed. I’ve never been critical of the cultures I’ve lived in or traveled throughÄplease understand that an artificial person is a permanent stranger wherever she is, no matter how long she stays. No country could ever be mine so why think about it?
But when I did study it, I saw that this old planet is in sorry shape. New Zealand is a pretty good place and so is British Canada, but
a)On a mission I had spent whatever it took.even those two countries showed major signs of decay. Yet those two are the best of the lot.
But let’s not rush things. Changing planets is something a person doesn’t do twiceÄunless she is fabulously wealthy, and I was not. I was subsidized for one out-migration . . . so I had better by a durn sight pick the right planet because no mistakes were going to be corrected after I left the window.
BesidesÄ Well, where was Janet?
Boss had had a contact address or a call code. Not me!
Boss had had an ear in the Winnipeg police HQ. Not me!
Boss had had his own Pinkerton net over the whole planet. Not me!
I could try to phone them from time to time. I would. I could check with ANZAC and the University of Manitoba. I would. I could check that Auckland code and also the biodep of the University of Sydney. I would.
If none of those worked, what more could I do? I could go to Sydney and try to sweet-talk somebody out of Professor Farnese’s home address or sabbatical address or whatever. But that would not be cheap and I had suddenly been forced to realize that travel I had taken for granted in the past would now be difficult and perhaps impossible. A trip to New South Wales before semiballistics started to run again would be very expensive. It could be doneÄby tube and by float and by going three-fourths the way around the world .
but it would be neither easy nor cheap.
Perhaps I could sign on as a ship’s doxy out of San Francisco for Down Under. That would be cheap and easy. . . but time-consuming even if I shipped in a Shipstone-powered tanker out of Watsonville. A sail-powered freighter? Well, no.