Anticipations

by Christopher Priest

  “You tried to make it your business, just as you still try to interfere in all my relationships now. Besides, who was mother’s little pet, eh?”

  “Well, come on then, give—who was mother’s little pet? It wasn’t me, that’s for sure. It was Alice, wasn’t it, your favourite sister!”

  “Leave Alice out of this, you bitch. She’s dead too, and we both know what killed her.”

  She hit him across the face.

  He stepped back, raising his hand to his cheek, resting his knuckle on his lip and glaring at her across the edge of his palm.

  “You’re still lousy with guilt,” he said. “It shows in everything you do. It settles like a blight on everything you touch.”

  “If you’re trying to blame your blighted life on me, think again. You may recall that it was you who persuaded me to come and live up on this miserable pseudoplanet.”

  “More fool me!”

  “Right, more fool you! You always were a fool.”

  “I’m going out,” he said. “I can’t take any more of you!”

  “And you’re a coward, too!”

  “Relax, I know you’d love to have me strike you and pummel you into a pulp. That’s really what you want, isn’t it? Not just from me, from any man!”

  “You talk so big to me. You creep to all the real men in your precious Callibrastics, don’t you?”

  He went through into his room and sat on a chair to pull his sokdals on. As he came back through the main room to reach the outer door, she said, “Don’t forget Anna will be here at five.”

  He left without answering. Unfortunately it was impossible to slam their airtight door.

  X

  Fragrance Fish-Food Farms Amalgamated presented a clear profile only when their administrative levels rose above mean city-level. Below that, successive storeys down mingled with the surrounding establishments and were interpenetrated by the mainlines and tunnels of the public transport system, so that they merged into the complex web of the city capsule. Most storeys nevertheless had a formal entrance as well as many functional ones, perhaps as a fossil of ancient twodimensional approaches to urban planning, and it was at one of these formal entrances that Edward Maine presented himself.

  Edward had a Brazilian friend in FFFFA called Jose Manuela do Ferraro, who worked in the Genetic Research department of the giant corporation. A neat little Japanese assistant came to meet Edward and escorted him to Jose’s floor. She led among huge vats milling with young prawns and deposited him at the door of Jose’s office.

  The Brazilian was a big man, who jumped up and shook Edward’s hand, clapping him on the back and smiling broadly.

  “You’re very successful nowadays, Edward—I saw a report of your celebratory party on the scatter. It makes you too busy to attend Tui-either-nor meetings, I guess?”

  “Afraid so. Are you still a priest in your Side Job?”

  “Can’t afford to give up Main Job—besides, it fascinates me so. Come and see what we are doing in the Homarus division.”

  “That’s very kind, Jose, but—”

  “Come on, we can talk as we go. I miss our arguments at Tui meetings, Edward. You were so good—you sharpened my wits. Now I suppose you work too much with computers to have any religious feelings.”

  Edward had other matters than religion on his mind, so all he said, reluctantly, was, “We need computers.”

  “Agreed, we need computers at this stage of man’s progress,” Jose said, opening a swing door for his friend. “But progress should be towards the sciences of self-knowledge not towards technology-slanted sciences. That’s a deadend. Even I have to work with computers in Main Job, while denouncing them in Side Job. We must think in fuzzy sets, not the old either-or pattern so basic to Western ideology.”

  “I know, I know,” Edward muttered. “But either-orness has brought us a long way.”

  “Now we are being defeated by alien Chinese ways of thought. You must believe in my sub-thought. Sub-thought exists and is measurable—we are getting proof. Sub-t is much more random and instinctive than ordinary logical thought; it must not be structured like thought. Sub-t is related to will, and will, as we know, can modify neural patterns in the brain. If we believe in Freud, then we have Freudian dreams, and so on. If we believe in computer-human analogies, then we will come to think and sub-t like our machines. So we will be totally dominated by either-orness. Then all creativity will be lost.”

  “Creativity always breaks out anew, every generation.”

  “Yes, but unpredictably—even in your worlds of predestination, old friend! With Tui-either-nor, we can nourish it, make barren logic subject to creativity, rather than the other way round as at present.”

  “That’s putting it too strongly,” Edward said, with a feeble smile.

  “No, it’s not, not while the western world is in recession generally. Tui is the old Mandarin symbol for water—a lake, for instance, signifying pleasure and fluidity. That’s what we need, fluidity. Among all the religions of the zeepees, Tui is the only fructifying one, the only one that genuinely offers redemption—the redemption not just of one’s self but of others!”

  “I must try and get round to meetings again,” Edward said. “Do you still make those ringing priestly addresses to God about Tui?”

  “Of course.”

  “And does God answer?”

  Jose laughed good-naturedly. “When you speak to God, that’s just prayer. When he starts speaking to you—that’s just schizophrenia.”

  They were walking among gigantic three-layered tanks in which large lobsters sprawled. The tanks were dimly lit, while the laboratory itself remained unlit. Yet it looked as if many of the lobsters could see the men, so quickly did they turn to the glass walls of their prisons and signal with antennae and claws, as if asking to be released.

  “We are just beginning to realize how many kinds of thinking there are,” Jose said. “Predestination works only for those who believe in it . . .”

  “I feel bound to challenge that statement!” Edward exclaimed. “After all—”

  “Don’t challenge it, remember it. Feel it fertilize you. I will show you how a little Tui thinking worked for us here.” They had come to a fresh series of tanks in which more lobsters sat. Jose changed the subject as smoothly as if he imagined he was still talking about the same thing. “These lobsters that you see here are not much different from the ancestral lobster, homarus vulgaris. You can see they’re a sort of dull reddy-yellow, spotted with little bluish-black patches. The only difference is that these chaps are bigger; they weigh up to six kilos. We have to breed ’em big, which we do in the traditional way of mixing inbred lines with crossbreeds for hybrid vigour. By using ideal temperatures, we can persuade them to grow to mature market size in two years rather than three.”

  “Do you import sea water from Earth?” Edward asked. “Genes, no—far too expensive, and sea water is not pure enough for our purposes. This is all artificial sea water—in fact, synthetic water in the first place, hydrolized out of hydrocarbons and oxides floating in space.”

  He rapped against the glass. “But you see the trouble with ordinary lobsters. They’re nasty pugnacious creatures, so aggressive that they have to live in solitary confinement throughout life, or they’d eat each other. Which puts up per capita costs greatly, when you consider that on Fragrance alone some twenty-three million kilos of lobster meat are consumed per annum—which means a lot of lobsters, and a lot of tanks.”

  “I mustn’t take up any more of your time,” Edward commented.

  Jose took his elbow and led him back along the way they had come, where the rows of tanks were more brightly lit. Here, lobsters jostled together in apparent bonhomie, armour notwithstanding.

  “These certainly are highly-coloured,” Edward said. “I didn’t recognize them as lobsters at first.”

  “They don’t recognize each other as lobsters,” Jose said. He beamed, and made embracing gestures at the Crustacea. The latter were cer
tainly a remarkable sight, being in all cases bicoloured, the two colours contrasted and arranged in stripes and jagged lines, rather like the camouflaged dreadnoughts of World War I. There were many colours in the tanks: lobsters yellow and black, lobsters white and cerise, lobsters scarlet and orange, lobsters viridian and grey, lobsters sky blue and sienna brown, lobsters carmine and paint-box purple. There were scarcely two lobsters of the same pattern.

  “What we have done is simple,” said Jose, rapping on the plate glass with one creative knuckle. “Firstly, we have altered their genetic coding so as to transform their original vague coloration until we hit on strains which are the eccentric hues you see now. Then we bred them true, using cloning methods. Next, taking a clue from the coloration, we made use of research into orientation anistropy in acuity.”

  “Whatever’s orientation anistrophy in acuity?”

  “Not anistrophy. Anistropy. It’s an anomaly of vision.

  Permit nothing but horizontal lines in the environment of an infant mammal, and ever after it will have no neural detectors for vertical ones, becoming completely orientated on the horizontals. We found that the immature visual cortex of the lobster responds in the same way. See what I mean? The effect is on the brain, not the vision, but what happens is that, after the treatment we give the larvae in their visual environment, no striped lobster can see another striped lobster. Although they basically have the same nasty pugnacious natures as their terrestrial ancestors, they live together peacefully. For them as for us, it all depends how you look at things.”

  “Very interesting,” said Edward politely. Then he added, “Yes, that really is very interesting . . .”

  “You get the implications for human conduct, eh?” said Jose. “You see where my Tui thought came in? I believe that the culture matrix of our civilization—of any civilization—imprints us from birth so that we can only see horizontal lines or, in other words, only think along channels deemed correct by long-established custom.”

  Genuinely interested now, Edward said as they walked back to Jose do Ferraro’s office, “I wonder if all the slightly differing environments of the zeepees will eventually give rise to a generation who are oriented to verticals or—to an entirely new way of thought.”

  “My guess would be that we’re seeing some such phenomenon already. It would account for all the cults springing up daily. I believe that Tui is one of the true new directions.”

  They settled down in the office and Jose got them two pam-and-limes from the machine. As they were sucking, he said, “So, what can I do for you, my lapsed friend?”

  “Don’t call me that, Jose. I still believe, but I’ve been so busy.”

  “Ha, you’re killing your spiritual life with work—you’ll become a robot. The sad thing is, you know what you’re doing . . . Well, how can I help you?”

  Now that his moment had come, Edward was embarrassed. “It’s about a girl, Jose.”

  “Good. I didn’t think you were interested. Women are full of Tui-either-norness. Do I know her?”

  “You may do. I believe she works here in FFFFA.”

  “But you aren’t sure?”

  “It’s an Internal girl, Jose. She comes personally to my place, but in disguise, of course. She has dropped clues about her real identity. For instance, once she said to me, ‘My happiness lies in artificial oceans’. I made nothing of it at the time. This morning, it suddenly hit me that it could be the remark of a girl who worked in FFFFA. A reference to your seawater tanks. Then again, a remark she made about Chekhov convinced me she must be Asiatic.”

  “Who’s Chekhov?”

  “How pleased you make me that I know some things you don’t! He’s a writer. Never mind him. You have a lot of Chinese staff here, haven’t you?”

  “You probably know that Four F A’s fifty-five per cent Chinese-owned. Eighty per cent or more of the work staff are Chinese or North Korean. If your girl’s here, she’s one of probably two thousand. You’d have no way of identifying her, not if you’ve never seen her externally.”

  Edward paused, then he said, “Yes, I have a means. I think I have. I think I could identify her internally.”

  “How can you do that? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

  “Nobody has. It’s my own idea. And it’s not unlike your variable lobster idea. Jose, I’ve studied my Internal-girl through the eyes of the electron microscope plus the eyes of love. I’ve been down into her with magnifications in the millions, and I’ve seen something in her which no other human being has—her print, as individual as—no, far more individual than any lobster.”

  “You mean—you don’t mean a disease?”

  “No, no, I mean her histocompatibility antigens.”

  “Oh, the substances that set up immune reactions in tissue transplants.”

  “Exactly. They insure that we are all immunologically foreign to each other, unless we happen to have an identical twin. They’re sort of chemical badges of personal identity. There’s a sufficient diversity of them to insure that everyone’s antigen kit is different. It’s the most basic form of identification there is.”

  “And you know what your girl’s kit looks like?”

  “I have stills of her antigens. They’re beautiful. I know them by heart. What’s the matter? You’re wearing your priest face!”

  Jose do Ferraro was looking at him with a peculiar creased face, its expression seeming to alternate between mockery and affection.

  “Oh, Edward, ‘Make simpler daily the beating of Man’s heart . . .’ Every day love reveals itself in a new form, as fluid and vigorous as Tui itself. Here you stand, enraptured by the girl with the beautiful antigens . . .”

  Edward was touched by this speech, since he had not thought of himself as capable of rapture. “You don’t believe I’m being silly?”

  “I didn’t say that, did I?”

  Edward laughed. “O.K. Do an idiot a favour. Your welfare department must have records of all the girls employed here. Can we run their medical data through a scanner? Under suitable magnifications, I know I could identify my Zenith.”

  “Such records exist, of course. But it’s illegal for anyone but the qualified Welfare staff to see them. So we’d better go and see Dr. Shang Tsae, who works in Welfare—happily, his Side Job is acolyte to Priest Ferraro . . .”

  XI

  “I was worried about you. Wherever have you been?” Fabrina asked. No sign of the quarrel.

  “Oh, engaged in a little private research of my own,” Maine said. “I’m exhausted. Let me rest.” He walked over to the mirror and tried to pat his hair into order.

  “Of course, my dear. Lin, come over here and tell your master a story. Make it a nice restful one.”

  “All my stories are adapted to the mood of the moment,” said the lin, humbly yet smugly. “This one is called ‘Dinosaur Inspector’. ‘Taste the squalor of old obliterated airports,’ cried the dinosaur inspector. The people and incredible harlots were lusty upon the mountains. The dunes knew no spring. No animal eggs slept among the entanglements. But one strong man changed everything. Now bucolic perverts no longer lead the market. Falcons fly and magnesium bands play atrabiliously.”

  “Not very cheerful,” Fabrina complained.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” Maine said.

  Jose do Ferraro had secured Edward access to the medical files of FFFFA, thanks to the illegal aid of Dr. Shang Tsae. Then Edward had had to attempt his task of antigen identification without the aid of computer—something for which he had scarcely bargained. He allowed himself twenty-five seconds to flip up each internscape in turn and scrutinize it. Even so, it was going to take him fourteen hours to get through the whole batch of two thousand, and sometimes he had to shuffle through several internscapes of one woman to get a clear view of the antigens. He tried to speed up his viewing; then fatigue slowed him again. The day had been fruitless, as predicted by his PM. He told the sober little Chinese doctor that he would return the next day.


  **Key day. Persistence needed at start. Do not yield to impatience

  Antigen quest rewarded

  96

  Oysters yield great beauty

  94.5

  Increased heart-rate leads to precipitate action

  94

  Visit to the ever-punctual fly

  79.5

  Conversation delights

  87

  More initiative needed

  Outburst of invective can be avoided

  77.5

  XII

  Early on the following morning, Edward Maine heaved himself from bed and padded over to the PM, letting it gather all his physiological data while he was still half-asleep. On depressing the read-out bar, he became fully awake.

  #* Key day. Persistence needed at start. Do not yield to

  Summary: happy day, partly enjoyed in attractive company

  The second key day running. His life was certainly changing. One of the constant troubles he had had while developing the PM was that nothing ever happened in his life, so that in consequence the machine had nothing to predict; which made it difficult to tell whether it was working or not.

  Now it seemed to be working full blast.

  Just for a moment, as he dressed, Edward wondered how much the PM really told him. He could have guessed without its aid that this would be a key day. From the line “Antigen quest rewarded” onwards, it looked as if he would trace his longed-for Zenith; but that also was expected. On the other hand, it was difficult to tell from the read-outs where the unexpected lay. There were displeasing implications in that last line, “Invective can be avoided”. With whom? The machine could not tell him, or Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle would be violated; it predicted the unexpected in such a way that it remained unexpected.

  As soon as he could, he returned to the file-room of the FFFFA.

  It was over half-way through the morning before he thought he had what he wanted. Before him glowed a remarkably clear shot of antigens in body tissue; they resembled strange deep-ocean sponges, and were brightly coloured. His heart beat at an increased rate. He felt his mouth go dry. In colour, in shape, they matched with Zenith’s. He forgot that he was regarding a complex defence system designed to protect the human body from invasion by cells from another body; instead, he was gazing at a part of a world with its own perspectives, atmosphere, and laws which had no exact counterpart anywhere in the cosmos—an alien territory of beauty and proportion almost completely overlooked by man in his quest for new environments. By a paradox, this most personal view of his love was totally impersonal.