by Mary Carmen
The reason I was in Octula became apparent to me. The government was in a state of confusion after the removal of the Military Party by the Science Party. The scientists knew they wanted to oust the military officers running the place, but they had no idea what to do next. They had elected an elderly Octulian as the head of the government, but they had not at that time organized the various departments. I had an interest in what Americans called Treasury and Commerce, but what did scientists know about money and business?
I also saw the outside of my assigned house, and I located it on the map of New Philadelphia. The four client sites were within easy walking distance of that house.
The ambassador’s wife helped me find a cook and a part-time housekeeper. The American who was vacating my house did not use domestic help, although this is the norm on Octula.
I found out there is almost no manual labor on Octula. Everything is automated. Those Octulians who do not have the intelligence to become scientists or the strength to become part of the armed forces are either idle or become domestic workers. There are no shopkeepers, no bankers, no factory workers, no construction workers, no miners, and no lawyers on Octula. Goods are distributed by automated devices that service small stores. If you want a can of soup, you go into a general store, sit at a computer monitor, and press buttons until the soup you want is displayed. A few seconds later your can of soup is on the checkout counter with your bill. There are so few choices that shopping is easy.
Ordering in a restaurant is also easy. The menu is displayed on a computer monitor and you press buttons to make your selection. An automaton delivers the food to your table and collects your money.
Other work is also done by automatons. The mining of minerals is accomplished by a scientist who monitors the work of robots, computers handle the work of lawyers, and houses are built by automations under the direction of scientists.
Medical workers are essentially scientists who staff hospitals and clinics with the help of automatons.
The average Octulian is much more intelligent than the average human. There are no idiots on Octula because Octulians of extremely low intelligence are murdered before their second birthday. There are no exceptions; this society does not have the resources or the patience to work with the mentally crippled.
When God wants to experience how it feels to be murdered for a lack of intelligence, God sends a representative to Octula.
Meeting Anna
Three weeks after I arrived on Octula, Jonathan Murphy stopped at the embassy to invite me to dinner.
I certainly was happy to see my friend. The hospitality at the embassy was gracious and the food was fairly good, but the company was rather dull. The ambassador’s wife was full of stories about past assignments, all on Earth, and the ambassador was full of dire predictions about the fall of the Scientists. I could take just so much of this, especially since the old man had started to repeat most of his points.
Jonathan’s invitation came just in time, and I looked forward to the evening with his family. He had bragged so much about his father’s skill at poker that I was anxious to be allowed to sit in on a hand or two.
Jonathan had also talked about his sister Anna as if this woman had cornered the Octulian market on intelligence and beauty.
The evening started off well. I arrived with a bottle of fancy Scotch I had brought from home, and the five men of the family broke it open immediately. After a drink, Jonathan’s mother, Louella, and his sister Anna joined the party, carrying baskets of cheese and spinach fritters.
Anna was everything Jonathan had advertised, and I was quite smitten. She was about twenty and was very tall and thin, with blue eyes and light brown hair. Anna helped with the cooking and the serving, and then, while the domestics cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen, she took a place at the poker table.
After I had lost about a day’s salary to Len, Anna’s father, and about a half-day’s salary to Anna, I said I needed to be getting back to the embassy. Anna saw me to the door.
I was somewhat hesitant about asking the lovely girl to see me again, but she made it easy.
“Can you take the time to go with me to the theater next week?” Anna asked. “I would like to talk to you without the entire family continually asking me what I am saying.”
“I’m very pleased to be asked,” I replied. “I will make certain I am free on whatever evening you wish.” I was very nervous, a state I was not accustomed to.
The next day I sent flowers to Louella and Anna, enclosing a card thanking them for the excellent meal and the fine company. I was still nervous, but I also felt that old excitement I had not really felt since I was a freshman at Princeton and had been able to date a Homecoming Princess.
People you don’t know ask you to pray for peace, but God has no interest in universal peace. God has an interest in feeling as many experiences as possible, and war redoubles God’s opportunities for feelings of anger, pain, and hatred.
Starting My Assignment
Before Anna’s call came, it was time for me to start working with my clients.
My first order of business was to meet with the Octulian who had worked with us on the earlier set of recommendations. This was a male who was, like me, essentially a consultant. We met in his office for about an hour to establish a set of goals for my work and a preliminary schedule. The office was terribly cold and I kept my parka and my boots on throughout the meeting.
On Octula a meeting is mostly a social occasion. Preliminary activities, which on Earth would take about five minutes, take forty-five minutes on Octula. Greetings are elaborate, with bows and the calling out, by a butler entity, of the honors and academic records of each attendee. These greetings take about ten minutes for only two attendees. Then, the host serves a thick drink with some snacks (the Octulians are very large and need to eat often). This takes about twenty minutes. Then, the host discusses his family and their various activities and health situations for another fifteen minutes. Finally, the meeting turns to the business at hand.
The consultant reviewed my drafted list of activities and made some suggestions. We used the translation machines throughout the meeting. I read my list and the machines translated my words into Octulan.
We set up a kickoff meeting to introduce the project and me to the personnel of the four departments involved, and I left with the revised kickoff agenda and the project’s schedule in hand.
Getting about a dozen entities together is never easy on Octula. A meeting specialist is required to coordinate the schedules and find a meeting room. I left that preliminary meeting believing we would meet the next week to begin the project, but actually four weeks passed before all participants could be brought together. I had very little to do, but my time was billed to the project as if I were working steadily.
To the Movies with Anna
Just after that first meeting with the client, Anna called me at the embassy.
“Thanks for the nice flowers,” she began, in a soft voice much different from the one she had used at the poker table. I had developed on Earth an aversion to such a voice, associating it with a nearly uncontrollable anger just below the surface.
“I’m glad I could find them,” I admitted. “When can we get together?”
She sighed. “The theater here is very interesting, but the play I want to see has been postponed for two weeks because of the popularity of the current production.”
I was not anxious to delay our first real outing. “Why can’t we see both the current play and the next one, too?”
Anna paused. Then she said, “I have already seen this play. How about a movie? The movies here are not quite as good as they are on Earth, but I think you will find one or two of interest.”
“Fine. Let’s go tonight,” I said.
“Bring your translation machine with the earphones,” she replied. “I’ll meet you at 405 Market just after dusk.”
I walked to the movie house on Market, some seven blocks from the am
bassador’s house. Walking on Octula is very easy because the gravity is somewhat lighter than on Earth. You can get wonderful exercise walking and not really feel tired. It is a lot like swimming on Earth.
Anna was waiting. She wore a very handsome light blue bodysuit and a navy parka, and her hair was pinned close to her head.
We sat through a showing of a Greek-like tragedy, with a cast of Octulian allstars. I hated every minute of it, but Anna was enthralled. She cried at the sentimental moments and covered her eyes during the onstage murders. I had to admit it was easy to follow the dialogue with the translation machine, and it gave me my first idea of what Octulian beauty was considered to be.
After the movie we went to a small restaurant for snacks and drinks. We talked for about an hour about our lives and our work. Anna told me about her job with the family’s business and how she directed the loading and unloading of the spacecraft to and from Earth. I discussed my work in Pittsburgh and what we hoped to accomplish in the time I would spend on Octula, but I did not tell Anna about my family.
I could not help but admit to myself I was much stirred by Anna’s beauty. She was energetic and lovely, and I felt a need to keep my coat buttoned. To give a woman the idea you have an erection is to open yourself to that woman’s intrigues.
We parted, agreeing to meet again at the theater in two weeks.
Reworking the Schedule
I spent some time thinking about the impact of the project’s delays on our estimate of three months for my assignment, and then I wrote a letter to my director to outline my concerns about the schedule. This news would not be a surprise because our earlier project was continually delayed due to slow responses from Octula. I sent the letter in the normal electronic channel and expected a response in about ten Earth days.
In 2077 fast electronic correspondence between planets was just getting under way. In 2030 a faster-than-light channel had been developed by a planet when its entities had a need to communicate with another planet in its own star system. Later, this same channel had been enhanced several times using small spacecraft to include faster communications to other planets, including Earth. By 2077 the channel between Octula and Earth took about three days each way. Of course, today this channel is outmoded and the StarSifter system is in place for nearly instantaneous communications.
I proposed three options for my director:
· Extend my stay on Octula by three months
· Recall me to Earth immediately and continue to work via electronic communications
· Assign me on a permanent basis to Octula.
I expected the director to choose the first of these options.
While waiting for a decision, I moved from the embassy to the small house that had been assigned to me. This house was furnished in a Spartan style, with cheap furniture from Earth and a few art objects from Octula. It was not in any way as elegant as my suite in my house in Pittsburgh. It contained one bedroom, a study, a sitting room, and a kitchen with a dining table. The single bathroom contained a whirlpool tub in a nod to the plentiful energy available on Octula to run such a device. Linens and kitchen equipment were furnished, too. There was no room for household staff to live in the house, and I was relieved I had hired two entities who wanted to live elsewhere.
My cook, Miss Gappie Gasnes, arrived to look over the situation. She threw up her hands in the universal gesture of “however can we make do with this junk?” and went out to buy food and a few kitchen utensils. The housekeeper came by and saw he would have no trouble with the tiny dwelling.
The ambassador’s staff helped me move my few belongings to the house. I sent the ambassador’s wife the same kind of flowers I had sent to Louella and Anna and concluded this part of my visit to Octula.
By the time Miss Gasnes and I were established and were working well together, I received my response from the director. He had decided to extend my stay by three months, with the idea he would decide during the next two months about making the assignment a permanent one.
I wrote back to the payroll office to extend my order to send half my salary to Maude, and I sent a brief note to Maude saying my assignment was being extended due to the difficulties of working with the project’s stakeholders on Octula.
I did not tell Maude much about my work or my activities on Octula. Maude had her own projects and had never been much interested in my comings and goings.
What is evil? God has no definition of evil. To God, there is as much to be learned from a life filled with what people call crime and ill will as from a life filled with virtue.
We are not judged on our assignments from God. We come to the universe with agreed-upon work, and God never differentiates among us because of the details of those assignments. God loves all of us, just as you might love your arms and your legs, because all of us are part of God.
Anna Proposes
Just as I was getting settled into my house, Anna came to call. She brought an apple pie and a bottle of Chablis. I showed her all the rooms and introduced her to Miss Gasnes.
“Tony, are you comfortable here?” she wondered.
“These are my assigned quarters,” I replied with a sigh. “I would love to have twice as much space in the house and ten times as much in the garden, but this will be my home for the next five months.”
“Five months! Only five months?” she screamed.
I explained the change in my assignment and the director’s commitment for some clarification as to its length.
She was silent for a few minutes. Then she said in that softer voice, “I was hoping we could be together here. But if you have to go home, maybe it is not to be.”
I quickly said, “Of course we can be together. We can go to the theater and to dinner. For at least the next five months.”
Anna was not finished. She explained, “I want a mate, someone who will be able to live on Octula with me and be the father of my children. Perhaps I had assumed you were a candidate, and perhaps I was wrong. Jonathan did not tell me you were just a temporary visitor.”
I had been trained to expect unusual turns in conversations, but I was stunned.
“Anna,” I said, “you are very beautiful and very young. Surely there are many, many young men here from Earth who would be better choices. The ambassador told me there are at least two hundred single men from America now on Octula.”
She nodded. “Yes, there are plenty of single men. Most of them are here as part of a deal where they would not have to serve jail time if they would come here to work. Our business employs about forty such men. I have met them all.”
“And you are not attracted to any of these men? Not one of them?” I asked.
“They are what Americans call blue collar workers. Uneducated. Hard to manage. Not marriage material.”
I continued with my objections. “I am almost thirty-eight years old. Recent research has shown older men produce defective offspring much more often than younger men.
“Furthermore, I am a terrible loner. I like to live alone, although I certainly like to have a friend for dinner and conversation. I am not suited for a full-time relationship.”
Anna nodded again. Then she said, “I think you will do fine. I will consider what you have said, and we will continue to see each other during the next several months while your director decides if your assignment here should be permanent.”
“Anna, what do you see in me?” I wondered.
“You are the best damned poker player we have ever entertained at our house. My father and I usually can take a month’s salary in four hours from anybody we play with,” she said, and that was her final word.
Weighing Alternatives
I spent the next several weeks considering my options.
The work on Octula was exactly like my assignments in Pittsburgh: interviewing, examining options, running the numbers, and working with the client to make a recommendation. The job on Octula, if indeed it could be limited to the project already defined, would probably take
five years from the feasibility study through the implementation of the procedures and organizational changes to be recommended.
The advantages to a five-year assignment on Octula were clear. They were:
· No supervisor on site. There was absolutely no way any director was going to spend a year coming out here to look over my shoulder. I would have a free hand with my work, and I would not need to endure the constant criticisms, usually in public, of my current director. I could develop a schedule and work to that plan without continual harangues about any slippages.