Asimov’s Future History Volume 4

by Isaac Asimov

  “No,” she mumbled, although she could guess.

  “For starters, a hearing in juvenile court. You could get a few months in Youth Offenders’ Level, or you might get lucky and be sentenced to help out in a hospital a few days a week. You’d get lots of chances to see accident victims there.” He pulled at his mustache. “That might do you some good. Maybe you ‘II be there when they bring in some dead strip-runner who wasn’t quick enough. You can watch his parents cry when the hospital makes the Ritual of Request before they take any usable organs from the corpse. And you ‘II have deep trouble if you ever misbehave again.”

  Amy squeezed her eyes shut. “Stay here,” the man said, even though she hardly had a choice, with the common room so filled with police. She sat there alone, wallowing in her despair until the detective returned with a cup of tea; he did not offer anything to her.

  He sat down behind the desk. “Will you give me the names of any runners with you?”

  She shook her head violently. Much as she hated Shakira, she would not sink that low.

  “I didn’t think you would. You’re not doing them any favor, you know. If they meet with accidents or end up hurting somebody else, I hope you can live with yourself.”

  The detective worked at his desk computer in silence until Amy’s father arrived. She glanced at his pale, grim face and looked away quickly. The formality of an introduction took only a moment before the plainclothesman began to lecture Ricardo Stein on his daughter’s offense, peppering his tirade with statistics on accidents caused by strip-runners and the number of deaths the game had resulted in this year. “If I hadn’t been on that expressway,” the man concluded, “the girl might have been badly roughed up — not that she didn’t deserve it.”

  Her father said, “I understand, Mr. Dubois.”

  “She needs to learn a lesson.”

  “I agree.” Ricardo shook back his thick brown hair. “I’ll go along with any sentence she gets. Her mother and I won’t go out of our way to defend her, and we probably share some of the blame for not bringing her up better and supervising her more. You can be certain there’ll be no repetition of such behavior.”

  “I imagine you’ll see to that, Mr. Stein — a solid citizen like you.” Mr. Dubois leaned back in his chair. “So I’ll do you and your wife a favor, and let Amy here off with a warning. She’s only fourteen, and this is her first offense — the first time she’s been caught, anyway — and Youth Offenders’ Level is crowded enough as it is. But she’s in our records now, and if she’s picked up again for anything, she goes into detention until her hearing, at which point she’ll likely get a stiff sentence.”

  “I’m grateful to you,” Amy’s father said.

  “Listen to me, girl.” Mr. Dubois rested his arms on the desk. “Don’t think you can lie low for a bit and then start strip-running again. We know who you are now, and you’ll be easy to spot. Not many girls run the strips.” He glanced at her father. “I think I can count on you to keep her in line. Wouldn’t do your status any good to have a criminal in the family.”

  “You can count on me, Mr. Dubois.”

  Amy’s father did not speak to her all the way home. That was a bad sign; he was never that silent unless he was enraged. He left her outside the Women’s Personal and went on to the apartment.

  She dawdled as long as she dared inside the Personal, then dragged herself down the hall, filled with dread, wondering what her parents would do to her. They would have discussed the whole affair by now, and her mother had probably mentioned the guidance counselor’s earlier message.

  They were both sitting on the couch when she entered; there was no use appealing to her mother for some mercy. The two rarely disagreed or argued in front of her, and in a matter this important, they would present a united front.

  She inched her way to a chair and sat down. She would not be beaten; her parents did not believe in physical punishment. A beating, even with all the bruises the expressway riders had already left on her, might have been better than having to endure her father’s harsh accusations and talk about how humiliating her offense was for all of them. She hadn’t thought of them at all, of how upset they would have been if she were injured. She hadn’t thought about how her pathological display of individualism might damage Ricardo’s reputation at work, or her mother’s among their neighbors. She hadn’t considered how such a blot on her record might affect her own chances later, or reflected on the danger she had posed to commuters. She hadn’t thought of the bad example she was setting for younger children, and had completely ignored her father’s earlier warning about such activity.

  By the time her father had finished his lecture, repeating most of his points several times, it was too late to go to the section kitchen. Her mother sighed as she folded their small table out of the wall and plugged in the plate warmer; her father grumbled about missing the chicken the section kitchen was to serve that night. They had been saving their fourth meal at home this week for Saturday, when Ricardo’s parents were to visit with a few of their own rations; Amy had ruined those plans, too.

  Amy pulled the ottoman over to the table and sat down as her mother sprinkled a few spices she had saved over the food. Her father took a call over the communo, barked a few words at its screen, then hung up. “That was Debora Lister.” He moved the two chairs to the table, then seated himself. “I told her you couldn’t talk.”

  Amy poked at her zymobeef and broccolettes listlessly. Just as well, she thought. Debora would only be calling to tell her what had happened when Shakira showed up, alone and triumphant, at Sheepshead Bay.

  “You won’t be taking any calls from your friends for a while,” her father continued. “I’ll notify the principal at school that you’re not to leave school levels except to go directly home, and a monitor will note when you leave, so don’t think you can wander around during the return trip. When you’re not in school, you’ll stay here except for going to meals with us or to the Personal. And in your free time, when you’re not studying, you’ll prepare a report for me on the dangers of strip-running. You shouldn’t find the data hard to come by, and you’ll present it to me in a week.” Ricardo took a breath. “And if I even hear that you’ve been running the strips again, I’ll turn you in to the police myself and demand a hearing for you.”

  “Eat your food, Amy,” her mother said; it was the first time she had spoken.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’d better — it’s all we have left of home rations for this week.”

  She forced herself to eat. Her father finished his food and propped his elbows on the table. “There’s something I still don’t understand,” he said wearily. “Why, Amy? Why would you do such a thing? I thought you had more sense. Why would you risk it?”

  She could bear no more. “I’m the best.” She stood up and kicked back the ottoman. “I’m the best strip-runner in the City! That’s all I’ll ever do, it’s all anybody will remember about me! I was the best, and now they’ve taken it away!”

  Her father’s gray eyes widened. “You’re not sounding very repentant, young lady.”

  “I’m sorry I lost! I’m sorry I was caught! I’m sorry you had to come and get me, but I’m not sorry about anything else!”

  “Go to your room!” he shouted. “If I hear any more talk like that, I will raise a hand to you!”

  Alysha reached across the table and grabbed his upraised arm as Amy fled to her room.

  Her life was over. Amy could not view matters any other way. The story had made the rounds quickly. She had lost to Shakira Lewes and been picked up by the police; Luis Horton was doing his best to spread the news. A hall monitor noted the times she left the school levels and reminded her, right in front of other students, that she was expected to go straight home; a few boys and girls always snickered.

  She greeted questions from her friends, even Debora, with a scowl, and soon no one was speaking to her outside of class. Nobody dared to bring up the run, or to tell her w
hat the Lewes woman had said when she arrived at the destination. There was the inevitable conference with Mr. Liang and her mother, and an additional embarrassment when the guidance counselor learned about the report she was preparing for her father. She delivered the report over the school’s public address screens, forced by Mr. Liang and the principal to repudiate the game; she cringed inwardly whenever she thought of how the students who had viewed her image must be laughing at her. Time inside the Youth Offenders’ Level couldn’t have been much worse.

  After three weeks, her parents eased up a little. Amy still had to come home directly from school, but they allowed her to do schoolwork with friends in the subsection after supper. News of her downfall had been replaced by gossip about Luis Horton’s successful run to the edge of Queens against Tom Jandow’s gang. Her friends were again speaking to her, but knew enough not to mention Shakira Lewes.

  She was ruined, and it was all that woman’s fault. She dreaded the daily journeys along the strips, when she sometimes glimpsed other runners and recalled what she had lost. She could no longer hear the music of the strips, the rhythmic song in their humming that urged her to race. She was already at the end of the line; the last bit of freedom she would ever know was gone. She would become only another speck inside the caves of steel, her past glory forgotten.

  Amy left the elevator at her floor with Debora, then suddenly stiffened with shock. Down the hall, Shakira Lewes was loitering outside the Women’s Personal.

  “What’s she doing here?” the blond girl asked. “I don’t know.”

  “I never told you,” Debora said, “but when she finished the run, she —”

  “I don’t want to hear about it.” Amy took out her key when they reached the door, determined to ignore the woman. Hanging around outside a Personal was the crudest sort of behavior.

  “Hello, Amy,” Shakira said.

  “Haven’t you caused enough trouble?” Amy snapped. “You don’t belong here.”

  “But we never had our talk. This is the first chance I’ve had to find you, and I was pretty sure you’d be stopping here after school.”

  Amy gritted her teeth. “Now I can’t even go and take a piss in peace.”

  Shakira said, “I want to talk to you.” She lowered her voice as three women left the Personal. “Tonight, after supper, alone.”

  Amy’s fingers tightened around her key. “Why should I talk to you?”

  Shakira shrugged. “I’ll be at the Hempstead G-level, at the end of the Long Island Expressway. Get off and cross the strips to G-20th Street. I’ll be standing in front of a store called Tad’s Antiques — think you can find it?”

  Amy felt insulted. “I know my way around. But I don’t know why I should bother.”

  “Then don’t. I’ll be there by seven and I’ll wait until nine. If you don’t show up, that’s your business, and I won’t pester you again, but you might be interested in what I have to tell you.” Shakira turned and walked toward the elevator before Amy could reply.

  Debora pulled her away from the Personal door. “Are you going?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’ve got to find out what she wants.”

  “But your parents told you not to leave the subsection. If any of their friends see you —”

  “I’m going anyway. I have to go.” She would settle matters with the young woman one way or another.

  “To the edge of the City?” Debora whispered.

  “She can’t do anything to me on the street with people around. Deb, you have to cover for me. I can tell my parents I’ll be at your place. I don’t think they’ll call to check, but if they do, tell them I went to the Personal.”

  “If my father doesn’t get to the communo first.”

  “I’ll just have to take the chance,” Amy said.

  Debora let out her breath. “She may want to challenge you again. What’ll you do?”

  “I’ll worry about that when I get there.” She had already made her decision. If Shakira wanted another run, she couldn’t refuse, and she’d make sure some of the boys she knew were waiting at the destination as witnesses. Whatever the risk, it was a chance to restore her lost honor.

  Amy was on G-20th Street by seven-thirty. Shakira, as she had promised, was waiting in front of the antique store, which had an old-fashioned flat sign in script. There weren’t many stores in the shabby neighborhood, where the high metallic walls of the residence levels seemed duller than most, and no more than a few hundred people in the street. Amy felt apprehensive. Sections like this one were the worst in the City; only badly off citizens would live here, so close to the Outside.

  Shakira was gazing at an attractive display of old plastic cutlery and cups in the store window. Inside the store, the owner had made one concession to modem times; a robot was waiting on the line of customers. “Didn’t take you long to get here,” the woman murmured.

  “I shouldn’t be here at all,” Amy said. “I’m not supposed to leave my subsection, but my parents think I’m with a friend. “For once, they hadn’t asked too many questions, and had even seemed a little relieved that she would be gone for the evening. “I told them I’d be back by ten-thirty, so say what you have to say.”

  “I didn’t want to make that run, but you insisted, and I still have my pride.” Shakira looped her fingers around her belt. “Then, once I was running, old habits took over. Maybe I wanted to see if I still had my reflexes.”

  “You must have had a good time bragging about it later.”

  “I didn’t brag,” Shakira said. “I just met the kids and told them to go home. I said it was tough shaking you, and that you were one of the best runners who ever tailed me.”

  Amy’s lip curled. “How nice of you, Shakira. You still beat me.”

  “I saw what happened, why you didn’t jump back on the strip. Some runners would have risked it anyway, even with less room than you had. They would have jumped, and if a couple of people got knocked off the strip, too bad. I’m glad you aren’t that antisocial.”

  “What do you want with me, anyway?” Amy asked. A few women stopped near her to look in the store window, but she ignored them; even in this wretched area, people wouldn’t be crass enough to eavesdrop.

  “Well, I heard about this girl, Amy Barone-Stein, who could run the strips with the best of them. I still know a few runners, even though most of my college friends would disapprove of them. I thought you might be a little like me — restless, maybe a bit angry, wondering if you’d ever be more than a component in the City’s machine.”

  Amy stepped back a little. “So what?”

  “I thought you might like a challenge.”

  “But you said before that you didn’t want to make that run.”

  “I’m not talking about that,” Shakira said. “I mean a real challenge, something a lot harder and more interesting than running strips. It might be worthwhile for you if you’ve got the guts for it. “Amy took another step backward, certain that the woman was about to propose a shady undertaking. “You see, I’m part of that group of Lije’s — Elijah Baley’s — the people who go Outside once a week. His son Bentley is an acquaintance of mine.”

  Amy gaped at her, completely surprised. “But why —”

  “There are only a few of us so far. The City gives us a little support, mostly because of Lije — Mr. Baley — but I suspect the City government thinks we’re as eccentric as everyone else does, and that we’re deluded to think we can ever settle another world.”

  “Why bother?” Amy said. “The Spacers’ll never let anyone off Earth.”

  “Lije left, didn’t he?”

  “That was different, and they sent him back here as fast as they could. I’ll bet they didn’t even thank him for solving that murder. They’d never let a bunch of Earthpeople on one of their worlds.”

  “Not one of theirs, no.” Shakira leaned against the window. “But Lije Baley is convinced they’ll allow settlers on an uninhabited world eventually — maybe sooner than we think — and t
hat they’ll provide us with ships to get there. But we can’t settle another world unless we’re able to live Outside a City.”

  Amy shook her head. “Nobody can live Outside.”

  “Earthpeople used to. The Earthpeople who settled the Spacer worlds long ago did. The Spacers do, and we manage to — for two or three hours a week, anyway. It’s a start, just getting accustomed to that, and it isn’t easy, but any settlers will have to be people like us, who’ve shown we can leave a City.”

  “And you want me in this group?” Amy asked.

  “I thought you might be interested. We could use more recruits, and younger people seem to adapt more quickly. Just think of it — if we do get to leave Earth, every single settler will be needed, every person will be important and useful. We’ll need people willing to gamble on a new life, individualists who want to make a mark, maybe even folks who are just a little antisocial as long as they can cooperate with others. You could be one of them, Amy.”

  “If you ever leave.”

  Shakira smiled. “What have you got to lose by trying?” She paused. “Do you have any idea of how precarious life inside this City is? How much more uranium can we get for our power plants? Think of all the power we have to use just to bring in water and get rid of waste. Just imagine what would happen if the air were cut off even for an hour or two — people would die by the hundreds of thousands. We’ll have to leave the Cities. They can’t keep growing indefinitely without taking up land we need for farming or forests we need for pulp. There’ll be less food, less space, less of everything, until —”

  Amy looked away for a moment. Her mother had said the same thing to her.

  “There isn’t a future here, Amy. “Shakira moved closer to her. “There might be one for us on other worlds.”

  Amy sighed. “What a few people do won’t make any difference.”

  “It’s a beginning, and if we succeed, others will follow. You seemed to think what you did was important when you were only running the strips.” The young woman beckoned to her. “Here’s my challenge for you. I’m asking you if you ‘II come Outside with me.”