Whispering: “What are we going to do for three hours?” She turned and gave me a quick hug and thanked the girl at the desk, then grabbed my hand and pulled me along to a slidewalk.
“Um.. . where are we headed?”
“Don’t ask questions, Sergeant. Just follow me.”
We stepped onto a roundabout and transferred to an eastbound slidewalk.
“Do you want something to eat or drink?” she asked innocently.
I tried to leer. “Any alternatives?”
She laughed gaily. Several people stared. “Just a second here!” We jumped off. It was a corridor marked
“Roomettes.” She handed me a key.
That damned plastic coverall was held on by static electricity. Since the roomette was nothing but a big waterbed, I almost broke my neck the first time it shocked me.
I recovered.
We were lying on our stomachs, looking through the one-way glass wall at the people rushing around down on the concourse. Marygay passed me a joint.
“William, have you used that thing yet?”
“What thing?”
“That hawg-leg. The pistol.”
“Only shot it once, in the store where I bought it.”
“Do you really think you could point it at someone and blow him apart?”
I took a shallow puff and passed it back. “Hadn’t given it much thought, really. Until we talked last night.”
“Well?”
“I. . . I don’t really know. The only time I’ve killed was on Aleph, under hypnotic compulsion. But I don’t think it would. . . bother me, not that much, not if the person was trying to kill me in the first place. Why should it?”
“Life,” she said plaintively, “life is. . .”
“Life is a bunch of cells walking around with a common purpose. If that common purpose is to get my ass-”
“Oh,William. You sound like old Cortez.”
“Cortez kept us alive.”
“Not many of us,” she snapped.
I rolled over and studied the ceiling tiles. She traced little designs on my chest, pushing the sweat around with her fingertip. “I’m sorry, William. I guess we’re both just trying to adjust.”
“That’s okay. You’re right, anyhow.”
We talked for a long time. The only urban center Mary-gay had been to since our publicity rounds (which were very sheltered) was Sioux Falls. She had gone with her parents and the commune bodyguard. It sounded like a scaled-down version of Washington: the same problems, but not as acute.
We ticked off the things that bothered us: violence, high cost of living, too many people everywhere. I’d have added homolife, but Marygay said I just didn’t appreciate the social dynamic that had led to it; it had been inevitable. The only thing she said she had against it was that it took so many of the prettiest men out of circulation.
And the main thing that was wrong was that everything seemed to have gotten just a little worse, or at best remained the same. You would have predicted that at least a few facets of everyday life would improve markedly in twenty-two years. Her father contended the War was behind it all: any person who showed a shred of talent was sucked up by UNEF; the very best fell to the Elite Conscription Act and wound up being cannon fodder.
It was hard not to agree with him. Wars in the past often accelerated social reform, provided technological benefits, even sparked artistic activity. This one, however, seemed tailor-made to provide none of these positive by-products. Such improvements as had been made on late-twentieth-century technology were-like tachyon bombs and warships two kilometers long-at best, interesting developments of things that only required the synergy of money and existing engineering techniques. Social reform? The world was technically under martial law. As for art, I’m not sure I know good from bad. But artists to some extent have to reflect the temper of the times. Paintings and sculpture were full of torture and dark brooding; movies seemed static and plotless; music was dominated by nostalgic revivals of earlier forms; architecture was mainly concerned with finding someplace to put everybody; literature was damn near incomprehensible. Most people seemed to spend most of their time trying to find ways to outwit the government, trying to scrounge a few extra K’s or ration tickets without putting their lives in too much danger.