The Life of the World to Come (Company) Read online

  “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.

  “Children?” 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.”

  “Well, in Mars One,” Jill said. “Mars Two’s another story.”

  “Mars Two is irrelevant,” said Balkister. “The agriculturals control the terraforming process and therefore control Mars. They can’t be outvoted or shouldered aside by the drones in the urban hives! No listless decadent intellectuals running the show at the expense of the real producers.”

  “Giles, you are so full of horseshit,” Jill said. “You wouldn’t last five minutes up there.”

  “Is it my fault I’m not physically fit for Mars?” said Balkister. “Blame my bloody genetic inheritance. So much for the divine right of the elite to pass on their DNA! My parents oughtn’t have been allowed to have me. They’d never have passed muster if they’d had to apply for the permit.”

  “There’d certainly have been a lot less hot air in the world.” Alec smiled.

  “Maybe I do serve a purpose, then,” Balkister replied. “Maybe civilization needs an ugly little creep like me to serve as a conscience, to prick the bubble of hypocrisy wherever it swells up, to jar people from their smug self-satisfaction and complacency!”

  “Bollocks, Balkister. Balkister, bollocks,” sang Jill.

  “You’d do well on Mars, though, Checkerfield,” said Blaise.

  “And so he ought,” said Balkister. “God knows you’re strong enough. You can be the ugly big creep I send in my place to be the social conscience of our class in the dark warrens of Mars Two. Let’s consider this seriously, Checkerfield.”

  “Alec is beautiful,” said Jill, bending down to kiss him.

  “Like a mushroom cloud!” scoffed Balkister. “Isn’t impressive the word we’re looking for, dear? God, Checkerfield, if only I had your voice, or you had my brain. People listen to you. They don’t always agree, but you get them to listen.”

  “It’s something to think about, Checkerfield,” said Blaise. “Mars.”

  Alec looked up through the branches of the plane tree (seventeen thousand three fifty-five leaves, he counted automatically) at the sky beyond.

  “Maybe I’ll go out there,” he said. “Someday.”

  “Alec, isn’t that your family’s Rolls?” Jill glanced over in the direction of the car park.

  “What?” Alec brought his gaze down. “It is.” He sat up abruptly as he saw Lewin get out of the car and come striding across the grass toward the circle. “Oh, shit.”

  Lewin’s face was gray, his expression set. He spotted Alec and made straight for him. Alec took a few steps forward.

  “What’s happened?” Alec shouted. “What is it? Is she okay?” The other members of the circle left off their separate conversational cliques to turn and stare.

  “The missus is fine,” Lewin said, and then in a completely altered vo
ice he said:

  “My lord, I regret to inform you that your father, the sixth earl, died this morning. You are now the seventh earl of Finsbury.”

  “Oh!” Jill put her hands to her mouth. Alec just stood there staring.

  “Are you sure?” Balkister said. “Had he been ill?”

  “No, sir. There was an accident.” Lewin looked up at Alec. “He was on a dive near the Great Barrier Reef and evidently he was intoxi—” Lewin broke off. “Alec!”

  Alec was trembling. The pupils of his eyes had become so wide the black nearly obscured the transparent crystal. He drew his lips back from his formidable teeth in a snarl.

  “Shrack,” he said. “That tears it, doesn’t it?” He looked around and saw a bench. With all his strength he punched it: first a left, then a right, and on the next left the flimsy laminate planks cracked and began to split. “You shracking bastard,” he panted, “you’ll never be back now, will you?”

  The Circle of Thirty had fixed its attention on him, stunned.

  “Alec, for Christ’s sake,” hissed Lewin, trying to get between him and the crowd to block the view.

  “Whoops! Ape Man’s lost it,” called Alistair Stede-Windsor gaily, though his voice was shrill. Alec ignored him in his rage and grief, pounding on the splintering bench as in a terrifically reasonable voice Blaise said:

  “You know, old man, that’s Crown property you’re demolishing—”

  “Who shracking cares?” Alec said. “I can pay for it. I’m the shracking seventh earl now, yeah? I can pay for anything.” The bench fell apart at last, its stone supports toppled, and Alec seized one up and hurled it with a grunt of fury at his little red car. It landed on the hood with a crash and several members of the Circle of Thirty screamed.

  “I’ll pay for everything!” Alec roared, grabbing up the other stone support and starting off toward the car park. “I got the money, I got the toys, I got the title and he’s never coming home now, the shracking son of a bitch, I’ll never see him again!”

  “Alec!” Lewin raced after him, closely followed by Balkister and Blaise. “Stop this!”

  Alec threw the other support at his car and the windscreen cracked with a sound like a shot being fired. “I didn’t want the shracking car. I didn’t want the money,” he said hoarsely, staring at the ruin he’d made. “I just wanted him to come back. Now—”

  “Alec, I’m sorry,” Balkister grabbed his arm. “But you can’t—” He looked at Alec’s fists and went pale, turned to Jill. “His hands are bleeding!”

  Jill had been staring, frozen in horror, but now she snapped out of it and ran to them, delving tissues from her purse. Alec started at her touch, looked down at her.

  “He never came home, he was never happy, because of me! He’s gone to Fiddler’s Green,” he gasped. “He’s gone to Fiddler’s Green, and I’ll never be able to tell him I was sorry.”

  “Darling, it’s not your fault,” said Jill, stanching his split knuckles. And then it was as though she heard a quiet little voice in her ear saying, cold as steel: Much too much emotional baggage for you, my dear.

  “Oh, I’m sorry—” wept Alec, as embarrassment added weight to his grief. All he could think of was Roger sinking down and down through dark water, toward a green island he’d never been to yet, perhaps happy at last.

  “We’ve got to get him out of here,” said Blaise. “Before the—”

  Lewin said something unprintable. They looked up, following his gaze, and saw the public health monitor arriving.

  “This is the meditation room,” said the doctor in a too-gentle voice, and put a too-gentle hand on his shoulder and suggested, rather than pushed, Alec over the threshold. “You can be private in here for as long as you like.”

  “Thanks a bunch,” said Alec sullenly, rubbing his wrists where the restraints had been taken off. His hands were hurting badly now, but he hadn’t been allowed drugs, he assumed because of the urine and blood tests.

  “You’ll find relaxation patterns on the console,” the doctor told him, pointing to the only piece of furniture in the room. The room was what would have been referred to in a previous age as a padded cell. Even the console was thickly upholstered in pillowy foam. Every effort had been made to give the visitor the impression that he or she was floating inside a fluffy cloud.

  “Relaxation patterns?” said Alec, looking around to see if he could spot the surveillance camera.

  “Oh, yes. Whale songs, forest rain, Dineh chanting, white noise. Lots of visual and olfactory aids as well. Please enjoy them,” said the doctor.

  “Can you give me something for these?” Alec held his bandaged hands up, knuckles out. “I’m in a lot of pain.”

  “I know.” The doctor looked sad. “But we don’t do drugs here, Alec. Use this as your opportunity to begin learning to deal with your pain. If you become one with your pain, understanding will begin. Feel your pain. Make friends with your pain.”

  Alec thought of telling the doctor to go shrack himself. Instead he nodded. “Thank you, sir, I will. I’ll just meditate now, shall I?”

  The doctor smiled, reached across the threshold to pat him on the shoulder gingerly and then left, sealing the door. When it had closed, the wall appeared to be a solid spongy mass.

  Alec leaned against the wall and slid down, sighing. He assessed his resources. They had relieved him of his shoes and tie but, because of his rank, refrained from going through his pockets. As a result he still had a packet of breath mints, his identity disc, three Happihealthy shields, a ToolCard and, most important, his jotbuke.

  Not safe to get it out yet, though. Where was the surveillance camera?

  Alec let his gaze wander over the walls in a casual sort of way and picked it out at last, looking like an extra-fluffy blob of cloud: in the door, directly opposite the console. He got awkwardly to his feet, levering himself up with his elbows, and went to inspect the console.

  Blocking the camera’s view with his back, he took up the buttonball. It was like handling a live coal with his hands the way they were, but he gritted his teeth and summoned up a menu. Whale songs, good and loud. He lingered on the aromatherapy column a moment, wondering whether eucalyptus essence might get him high, or at least kill the smells of this place, which were of terror, disorientation, and urine. Shrugging, he ordered it at maximum concentration. As it misted into the room he sneezed, shuddered, and focused his attention on the menu screen.

  A few experimental orders got him into a defended site, easily as kicking open a flimsy door. His eyes narrowed as he decrypted, forcing through one barrier after another until he found what he wanted. He altered codes, working quickly.

  The surveillance camera thought it saw him turn from the console and slide down the wall once more, to sit slack-faced and motionless, apparently listening to whale songs and getting mildly goofy on eucalyptus essence. This was what it dutifully reported to the monitor at the orderly’s post for the next hour.

  Fortunately for Alec, it was only seeing what he’d told it to see. In reality he had turned to lean against the wall and pulled his jotbuke from his inner jacket pocket, wincing. He flipped it open, thumbed a command and set it down on the console. As he nursed his right hand and watched, a small antenna projected and a ball of light shot forth.

  Even before the Captain materialized within the poorresolution globe, there was a concerted torrent of profanity that nearly drowned out the whale songs.

  “I didn’t call you to have you talk to me like that,” growled Alec. “I’d like some counseling, okay? I’ve just had a shock, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “You think you’ve had a shock?” The Captain’s face was dark with agitation, his beard curling threateningly. “Bloody hell, Alec, what did you think you was doing, smashing up that car? Christ, son, look at those hands! D’you know what kind of trouble we’re in now?”

  “It’s no big thing, okay?” said Alec wearily, sliding down the wall again. “Lewin is out there talking with the doct
ors. He told me he’d cut a deal. They won’t throw me in hospital, because I’m Jolly Roger’s kid. I’ll get therapy and a slap on the wrist and I’ll have to pay a fine. That’s for Roger’s solicitors to worry about. My solicitors now—”

  “Shut up! Did they take a blood sample? Have they done a brain scan?”

  “Er—yeah.” Alec regarded him with wide eyes. He jumped as the Captain repeated a word several times, and it wasn’t shrack. “Hey—”

  “Get on the buttonball, Alec, smart now,” the Captain ordered. “We got to diddle the test results, boy, or you ain’t getting out of hospital anytime this century, not if you was Prince Hank himself.”

  Frightened, Alec scrambled to his feet and took the ball. He ordered up the menu again. “See, it’s okay if they find the drugs and booze in my blood. That way they’ll think I was just stoned and not crazy when I smashed the bench—”

  “And yer car,” the Captain told him, watching tensely as Alec plunged into places he wasn’t supposed to be. “Come on, come on, where’s yer chart? Not there. Further down that way. Aye. Stop! There it is.” More profanity ensued as he regarded the results of Alec’s brain scan. “Change it, boy. Delete the code. Now, on my mark, input—” and he gave Alec the code that would alter the test results and efface any evidence of Alec’s cerebral anomaly. When they had finished they altered the results of the blood and urine tests as well, though not to conceal the presence of intoxicants.

  Alec was sweating and sick with terror by the time he finished inputting, and his right hand throbbed.

  “What did we have to do all that for?” he demanded, sagging back against the wall. The Captain sagged beside him and spoke carefully.

  “Son, you remember when they bought me for you, back when you was just a little matey, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “And you set me free, and we went on the account. Well, now, you ain’t just gone through life assuming everybody else can decrypt data and steal it, eh, only nobody does it but you? How d’you reckon you do it?”

  “I—I’m smart as paint,” said Alec, beginning to sweat again. He avoided the Captain’s eyes. “You always told me I was.”