The World Inside

by Robert Silverberg

  This puzzles him. Always here at this hour. The littles left alone, playing with their toys. Of course it is a bit early, not much. Just stepped out for a chat? I don't understand. She hasn't left a message. He says to his eldest son, ‘'Where's Mommo?"

  “Went out."

  “Where?"

  A shrug. “Visiting."

  “How long ago?"

  “An hour. Maybe two."

  Some help. Fidgety, perturbed, Jason calls a couple of women on the floor, Micaela's friends. They haven't seen her. The boy looks up and says brightly, “She was going to visit a man.” Jason stares sharply at him. “A man? Is that what she said? What man?” But the boy has exhausted his information. Fearful that she has gone off for a rendezvous with Michael, he debates phoning Edinburgh. Just to see if she's there. A lengthy inner debate. Furious images racing in his skull. Micaela and Michael entangled, indistinguishable, united, inflamed. Locked together in incestuous passion. As perhaps every afternoon. How long has this been going on? And she comes to me at dinnertime every evening hot and wet from him. He calls Edinburgh and gets Stacion on the screen. Calm, bulgy. “Micaela? No, of course she isn't here. Is she supposed to be?"

  “I thought maybe—dropping in—"

  “I haven't heard from her since we were at your place."

  He hesitates. Just as she moves to break the connection he blurts, “Do you happen to know where Michael is right now?"

  “Michael? He's at work. Interface Crew Nine."

  “Are you sure?"

  Stacion looks at him in obvious surprise. “Of course I'm sure. Where else would he be? His crew doesn't break till 1730.” Laughs. “You aren't suggesting that Michael—that Micaela—"

  “Of course not. What kind of fool do you think I am? I just wondered—that perhaps—if—” He is adrift. “Forget it, Stacion. Give him my love when he comes home.” Jason cuts the contact. Head bowed, eyes full of unwanted visions. Michael's long fingers encircling his sister's breasts. Rosy nipples poking through. Mirror-image faces nose to nose. Tonguetips touching. No. Where is she, then? He is tempted to try to reach him in Interface Crew Nine. Find out if he really is on duty. Or maybe off in some dark cubbyhole topping his sister. Jason throws himself face down on the sleeping platform to consider his position. He tells himself that it is not important that Micaela is letting her brother top her. Not at all. He will not let himself be trapped into primeval twentieth-century attitudes of morality. On the other hand, it is a considerable violation of custom for Micaela to go off in midafternoon to be topped. If she wants Michael, Jason thinks, let him come here decently after midnight, as a nightwalker. Instead of this skulking and sneaking. Does she think I'd be shocked to know who her lover is? Does she have to hide it from me this way? It's a hundred times as bad to steal away like this. It introduces a note of deceit. Old-fashioned adultery; the secret rendezvous. How ugly! I'd like to tell her—

  The door opens and Micaela comes in. She is naked under a translucent flutter-robe and has a flushed, rumpled look. She smirks at Jason. He perceives the loathing behind the smirk.

  “Well?” he says.

  “Well?"

  “I was surprised not to find you here when I got home.” Coolly Micaela disrobes. She gets under the cleanser. From the way she scrubs herself there can be no doubt that she has just been topped. After a moment she says, “I got back a little late, didn't I? Sorry."

  “Got back from where?"

  “Siegmund Kluver's."

  He is astounded and relieved all at once. What is this? Daywalking? And a woman taking the sexual initiative? But at least it wasn't Michael. At least it wasn't Michael. If he can believe her. “Siegmund?” he says. “What do you mean, Siegmund?"

  “I visited him. Didn't the littles tell you? He had some free time today and I went up to his place. Quite blessworthy, I must say. An expert slotman. Not my first time with him, of course, but by far the best."

  She steps out from the cleanser, seizes two of the littles, strips them, thrusts them under for their afternoon bath. Paying almost no attention to Jason. He contemplates her lithe bare body in dismay. A lecture on Urbmon sexual ethics almost spills from him, but he dams his lips, baffled and agog. Having laboriously adjusted himself to accept the unacceptable notion of her incestuous love, he cannot easily come to terms with this other business of Siegmund. Chasing after him? Daywalking. Daywalking. Has she no shame? Why has she done this? Purely for spite, he tells himself. To mock me. To anger me. To show me how little she cares for me. Using sex as a weapon against me. Flaunting her illicit hour with Siegmund. But Siegmund should have had more sense. A man with his ambitions, violating custom? Perhaps Micaela overwhelmed him. She can do that. Even to Siegmund. The bitch! The bitch! He sees her looking at him now, eyes sparkling, mouth quirked in a hostile smile. Daring him to start a fight. Begging him to try to make trouble. No, Micaela, I won't play your game. As she bathes the littles he says quite serenely, “What are you programing for dinner tonight?"

  At work the next day he decubes a motion picture of 1969—ostensibly a comedy, he imagines, about two California couples who decide to exchange mates for a night, then find themselves without the courage to go through with it. Jason is wholly drawn into the film, enthralled not only by the scenes of private houses and open countryside but by the sheer alienness of the characters’ psychology—their transparent bravado, their intense anguish over a matter as trivial as who will poke what into whom, their ultimate cowardice. It is easier for him to understand the nervous hilarity with which they experiment with what he takes to be cannabis, since the film, after all, dates from the dawn of the psychedelic era. But their sexual attitudes are wondrously grotesque. He watches the film twice, taking copious notes. Why are these people so timid? Do they fear an unwanted pregnancy? A social disease? No, the time of the film is after the venereal era, he believes. Is it pleasure itself that they fear? Tribal punishment for violation of the monopolistic concept of twentieth-century marriage? Even if the violation is conducted with absolute secrecy? That must be it, Jason concludes. They dread the laws against extramarital intercourse. The rack and the thumbscrew, the stocks and the ducking stool, so to speak. Hidden eyes watching. The shameful truth destined to out. So they draw back; so they remain locked in the cells of their individual marriages.

  Watching their antics, he suddenly sees Micaela in the context of twentieth-century bourgeois morality. Not a timid fool like the four people in the film, of course. Brazen, defiant—bragging about her visit to Siegmund, using sex as a way of diminishing her husband. A very twentieth-century attitude, far removed from the easy acceptance characteristic of the urbmon world. Only someone whose view of sex is tied to its nature as a commodity could have done what Micaela has done. She has reinvented adultery in a society where the concept has no meaning! His anger rises. Out of 800,000 people in Urban Monad 116, why must he be married to the one sick one? Flirting with her brother because she knows it annoys me, not because she's really interested in topping him. Going to Siegmund instead of waiting for Siegmund to come to her. The slotty barbarian! I'll show her, though. I know how to play her silly sadistic game!

  At midday he leaves his cubicle, having done less than five hours’ work. The liftshaft takes him to the 787th floor. Outside the apartment of Siegmund and Mamelon Kluver he succumbs to sudden terrible vertigo and nearly falls. He recovers his balance; but his fear is still great, and he is tempted to leave. He argues with himself, trying to purge his timidity. Thinking of the people in the motion picture. Why is he afraid? Mamelon's just another slot. He's had a hundred as attractive as she. But she's clever. Might cut me down with a couple of quick quips. Still, I want her. Denied myself all these years. While Micaela blithely marches off to Siegmund in the afternoon. The bitch. The bitch. Why should I suffer? We aren't supposed to have to feel frustration in the urbmon environment. I want Mamelon, therefore. He pushes open the door.

  The Kluver apartment is empty. A baby in the maintenance sl
ot, no other sign of life.

  “Mamelon?” he asks. Voice almost cracking.

  The screen glows and Mamelon's pre-programed image appears. How beautiful, he thinks. How radiant she is. Smiling. She says, “Hello. I have gone to my afternoon polyrhythm class and will be home at 1500 hours. Urgent messages may be relayed to me in Shanghai Somatic Fulfillment Hall, or to my husband Siegmund at Louisville Access Nexus. Thank you.” The image fades.

  1500 hours. Nearly a two-hour wait. Shall he go?

  He craves another glimpse of her loveliness. “Mamelon?” he says.

  She reappears on screen. He studies her. The aristocratic features, the dark mysterious eyes. A self-contained woman, undriven by demons. A personality in her own right, not, like Micaela, a frayed neurotic whipped by the psychic winds. “Hello. I have gone to my afternoon polyrhythm class and will be home at 1500 hours. Urgent messages may be relayed—"

  He waits.

  The apartment, which he has seen before, impresses him anew with its elegance. Rich textures of hangings and draperies, sleek objects of art. Marks of status; soon Siegmund will move up to Louisville, no doubt, and these private possessions are harbingers of his coming elevation to the ruling caste. To ease his impatience Jason toys with the wall panels, inspects the furniture, programs all the scent apertures. He peers at the baby, cooing in its maintenance slot. He paces. The other Kluver child must be two years old by now. Will it come home from the creche soon? He is not eager to entertain a little all afternoon while waiting tautly for Mamelon.

  He tunes the screen and watches one of the afternoon abstractions. The flow of forms and colors carries him through another impatient hour. Mamelon will be here soon.

  1450. She comes in, holding her little's hand. Jason rises, athrob, dry-throated. She is dressed simply and unglamorously in a cascading blue tunic, knee-length, and gives an unusually disheveled impression. Why not? She has spent the afternoon in physical exercise; he cannot expect her to be the impeccable, glistening Mamelon of the evenings.

  “Jason? Is something wrong? Why—"

  “Just a visit,” he says, barely able to recognize his own voice.

  “You look half flippo, Jason! Are you ill? Can I get you anything?” She discards her tunic and tosses it, crumpled, under the cleanser. Now she wears only a filmy wrap; he averts his eyes from her blazing nudity. And stares out of the corners as she drops the wrap also, washes, and dons a light housecoat. Turning to him again, she says, “You're acting very strangely."

  Out with it in a rush.

  “Let me top you, Mamelon!"

  A surprised laugh from her. “Now? Middle of the afternoon?"

  “Is that so wicked?"

  “It's unusual,” she says. “Especially coming from a man who hasn't ever been to me as a nightwalker. But I suppose there's no harm in it. All right: come on."

  As simple as that. She takes off the housecoat and inflates the sleeping platform. Of course; she will not frustrate him, for that would be unblessworthy. The hour is strange, but Mamelon understands the code by which they live, and does not hold him strictly to the rules. She is his. The white skin, the high full breasts. Deep-set navel. Black matted thatch curling lavishly onto her thighs. She beckons to him from the platform, smiles, rubs her knees together to ready herself. He removes his clothing, carefully folding everything. He lies down beside her, takes one of her breasts nervously in his hand, lightly nips her earlobe. He wants desperately to tell her that he loves her. But that would be a breach of custom far more serious than any he has committed thus far. In a sense, not the twentieth-century sense, she belongs to Siegmund, and he has no right to intrude his emotions between them, only his rigid organ. With a quick tense leap he climbs her. As usual, panic makes him hurry. He goes into her and they begin to move. I'm topping Mamelon Kluver. Actually. At last. He gains control of himself and slows it down. He dares to open his eyes and is gratified to find that hers are closed. The nostrils flared, the lips drawn back. Such perfect white teeth. She seems to be purring. He moves a little faster. Clasping her in his arms; the mounds of her breasts flattening against him. Abruptly, amazingly, something extraordinary is kindled within her, and she shrieks and pumps her hips and makes hoarse animal noises as she claws at him. He is so astonished by the fury of her coming that he forgets to notice his own. So it ends. Exhausted, he clings to her a little while after, and she strokes his sweaty shoulders. Analyzing it in the afterward coolness, he realizes that it was not so very different from what he has experienced elsewhere. One wilder-than-usual moment, perhaps. But otherwise only the familiar process. Even with Mamelon Kluver, the object of his incandescent imaginings for three years, it was only the old two-backed beast: I thrust and she thrusts and up we go. So much for romanticism. In the dark all cats are gray: old twentieth-century proverb. So now I've topped her. He withdraws and they go to the cleanser together.

  She says, “Better, now?"

  “I think so."

  “You were terribly tight when I came in."

  “I'm sorry,” he says.

  “Can I get you anything?"

  “No."

  “Would you like to talk about it?"

  “No. No.” He is averting his eyes from her body again. He searches for his clothing. She does not bother to dress. “I guess I'll go,” he says.

  “Come back some time. Perhaps during regular nightwalking hours. I don't mean that I really mind your coming in the afternoon, Jason, but it might be more relaxed at night. Do you follow what I'm saying?"

  She is frighteningly casual. Does she realize that this is the first time he has topped a woman of his own city? What if he told her that all his other adventures had been in Warsaw and Reykjavik and Prague and the other grubbo levels? He wonders now what he had feared. He will come back to her, he is sure. He makes his exit amid a flurry of grins, nods, half winks, and furtive direct glances. Mamelon blows him a kiss.

  In the corridor. Still early afternoon. The whole point of this excursion will be lost if he comes home on time. He takes the dropshaft to his office and consumes two futile hours there. Even so, too early. Returning to Shanghai a little past 1800, he enters the Somatic Fulfillment Hall and dumps himself into an image-bath; the warm undulating currents are soothing, but he responds badly to the psychedelic vibrations from below and his mind fills with visions of shattered, blackened Urbmons, all girders and skewed concrete. When he comes up it is 1920 and the screen in the dressing room, picking up his emanations, says, “Jason Quevedo, your wife is trying to trace you.” Fine. Late for dinner. Let her squirm. He nods to the screen and goes out. After walking the halls for close to an hour, beginning at the 770th floor and snaking his way up to 792, he drops to his own level and heads for home. A screen in the hall outside the shaft tells him again that tracers are out for him. “I'm coming, I'm coming,” he mutters, irritated.

  Micaela looks rewardingly worried. “Where have you been?” she asks the instant he appears.

  “Oh, around. Around."

  “You weren't working late. I called you there. I had tracers on you."

  “As if I were a lost boy."

  “It wasn't like you. You don't just disappear in the middle of the afternoon."

  “Have you had dinner yet?"

  “I've been waiting,” she says sourly.

  “Let's eat, then. I'm starved."

  “You won't explain?"

  “Later.” Working hard at an air of mystery.

  He scarcely notices his food. Afterward, he spends the usual time with the littles. They go off to sleep. He rehearses what he will say to Micaela, arranging the words in various patterns. He tries inwardly to practice a self-satisfied smirk. For once he will be the aggressor. For once he will hurt her.

  She has become absorbed in the screen transmission. Her earlier anxiety about his disappearance seems to have vanished. Finally he is forced to say, “Do you want to discuss what I did today?"

  She looks up. “What you did? Oh, you mean this af
ternoon?” She no longer cares, it appears. “Well?"

  “I went to Mamelon Kluver."

  “Daywalking? You?"

  “Me."

  “Was she good?"

  “She was superb,” he says, puzzled by Micaela's air of unconcern. “She was everything I imagined she'd be."

  Micaela laughs.

  “Is it funny?” he asks.

  “It isn't. You are."

  “Tell me what you mean by that."

  “All these years you deny yourself nightwalking in Shanghai, and go off to the grubbos. Now, for the stupidest possible reason, you finally allow yourself Mamelon—"

  “You knew I never nightwalked here?"

  “Of course I knew,” she says. “Women talk. I ask my friends. You never topped any of them. So I started to wonder. I had some checking done on you. Warsaw. Prague. Why did you have to go down there, Jason?"

  “That doesn't matter now."

  “What does?"

  “That I spent the afternoon on Mamelon's sleeping platform."

  “You idiot."

  “Bitch."

  “Failure."

  “Sterilizer!"

  “Grubbo!"

  “Wait,” he says. “Wait. Why did you go to Siegmund?"

  “To annoy you,” she admits. “Because he's a rung-grabber, and you aren't. I wanted to get you excited. To make you move."

  “So you violated all custom and aggressively daywalked with the man of your choice. Not pretty, Micaela. Not at all feminine, I might add."

  “That keeps things even, then. A female husband and a mannish wife."

  “You're quick with the insults, aren't you?"

  “Why did you go to Mamelon?"

  “To get you angry. To pay you back for Siegmund. Not that I give a damn about your letting him top you. We can take that stuff for granted, I think. But your motives. Using sex as a weapon. Deliberately playing the wrong role. Trying to stir me up. It was ugly, Micaela."

  “And your motives? Sex as revenge? Nightwalking is supposed to reduce tensions, not create them. Regardless of the time of day you do it. You want Mamelon, fine; she's a lovely girl. But to come here and brag about it, as if you think I care whose slot you plow—"