Yoo Retoont, Sneogg. Ay Noo

by Marek S. Huberath

  Dulf began to wake up more frequently. He never changed his position on the floor, though he blinked and even spoke. His speech was comical: he stammered and couldn’t find words. Snorg wanted to know how Dulf managed without a machine, but Dulf didn’t know the meaning of the word “will,” so there was nothing to discuss between them. The Dagses once tried to straighten Dulf on the floor, but it turned out that his body was actually in a ball. Piecky said that was impossible, the only explanation was that Dulf was twins grown together and he had a little brother on his belly.

  “Have you noticed, Snorg,” Piecky remarked, lifting his artificial hand from the keyboard, “how quickly we’ve been changing? Before, I thought everything was fixed for us: you crawled, Tib stood, Dulf spoke only when you slept. And now?”

  “What do you mean, Piecky?”

  “A big change awaits us, a very big change. Remember how it was at the beginning?”

  Snorg nodded.

  “Each one of us had a viewscreen in front of his nose. The viewscreens taught us everything, showed us what the world was like and how it should be… We were surrounded with wires, which got our muscles going, our organs, the whole body… and kept us alive.”

  “I still use the machine sometimes, but I seem to recall, through a fog, that it was that way with all of us,” said Snorg.

  “Through a fog, exactly!” Piecky became excited. “They pump drugs into us, give us powders. We forget… Though maybe they want what we forget to remain deep inside us… in the unconscious.”

  Snorg saw that Piecky didn’t look well: his beautiful face was tired, the skin was dark around his eyes, and he was very pale.

  “You spend too much time in front of the viewscreen. You’re looking worse and worse…,” Snorg said.

  Suddenly one of the Dagses became interested in Piecky. The Dags apparently wanted to carry him to another place, though for the moment he only stroked Piecky’s cheek gently and tugged at his hair. Piecky gave Snorg a knowing look.

  “You see?” He smiled. “They understand some things after all. I only became aware of this recently. I don’t know why they both want to pass themselves off as cretins.”

  The Dags gave Piecky a slap and angrily left for another part of the Room. Piecky’s grin broadened.

  “You think I’m entertaining myself, Snorg? That all Piecky needs is to be put in front of the viewscreen and have his hand screwed on, and he’s happy?”

  “Snoegg,” said Tib. She could now take the sucker from the wall herself and didn’t foul the Room anymore, but she wasn’t able to put the tube away. Snorg helped her and returned to Piecky.

  Piecky told him, “Thanks to the viewscreen, I’ve learned a lot of things. Did you know, Snorg, that there exist many rooms like ours? The people that live in them, they’re like us. Some more defective, some less. One can see those rooms, because there are not only viewscreens everywhere but also cameras… We are constantly observed. My guess is that the lenses are near the ceiling, but it’s hard to see them. In one of the rooms, a dark blue room, lives a Piecky just like me. His name is Scorp. We’ve introduced ourselves. He looks at me on the viewscreen, and I look at him. He too has an artificial hand…”

  “Maybe,” Snorg suggested, “we don’t deserve to live the way the people shown on the viewscreen do, who are correctly formed.”

  “So you’ve swallowed that crap! And you feel guilty.” Piecky twisted so violently, it loosened the straps of his hand. Snorg had to tighten them.

  Piecky’s eyes roved, glittered. “They feed us guilt,” he spat. “I don’t know why they’re doing it, but I’ll find out… Just as I found out a lot more from those goddamn viewscreens than I was supposed to…”

  Snorg was awed by the strength that pulsed from Piecky. “And I thought will was my specialty,” he mused.

  Piecky must have read the expression on his face as doubt, because he went on: “Think about it, Snorg. Every program they show us, every fact… it’s all about how a human being should be. The arms, such a way, the legs, such a way, the correct way… And we? And I, what am I? A tatter of a man… And that’s supposed to be my fault? Do you understand?! Why do they keep drumming that into us?”

  Snorg said nothing. This proved how extremely wise Piecky was. One could learn from him, learn how to look at the world differently. Tib sat down beside Snorg and began to snuggle her face in his. The touch of her delicate skin Snorg loved more than anything.

  “I’m afraid I won’t have time to learn everything. Time’s running out,” Piecky concluded under his breath, seeing that Snorg was no longer listening.

  6

  “Pieckyy!…” called Moosy.

  “Don’t, he’s sleeping,” said Snorg.

  “Then come here and look at Aspe,” she insisted. “She’s not breathing.”

  Getting up by himself took Snorg several seconds of excruciating effort. Aspe, it turned out, was lying as she usually did-a little twisted, her withered hands tucked underneath her large, flat face. Snorg examined her.

  “She’s sleeping, the way she always does.”

  “You’re wrong, Snorg. Look again.”

  Turning Aspe’s face toward the ceiling was beyond Snorg’s strength. Fortunately the meddlesome Dagses were nearby. The three together were able to move her. Her body was cold and stiff.

  “Damn, you’re right… It must have happened some time ago,” he said in a hollow voice. “And I never exchanged a word with her. She was always asleep… Should we wake Piecky?”

  “No. He’ll find out anyway,” Moosy said. “I don’t understand her death. It doesn’t go with what Piecky told us.”

  Snorg sat with his face in his hands. Hearing a low, incoherent noise behind him, he turned. It was Tavegner crying. Tears, one after the other, were streaming down his red cheeks.

  “Turn me over on my back,” Moosy asked Snorg. “The skin on my stomach burns. I must have bed sores.”

  “On your stomach, you’re safer from the Dagses,” he said.

  “When they want it, it’s no problem for them to turn me over.”

  Aspe’s body disappeared while everyone slept, so no one knew how it was done.

  Seeing Piecky sitting haggard at the keyboard, Snorg decided to tell him what Moosy had said. He put Piecky in a more comfortable position, sat beside him, and told him.

  “Aspe’s death doesn’t contradict what I’ve concluded,” Piecky answered. “The laws that govern us operate statistically. It’s simple: first they tested us thoroughly and selected those who were viable, or possibly the others died… Then they discarded those who couldn’t learn, the complete cretins. The rest they taught intensively, using various means…”

  Snorg watched the capering Dagses, then looked at Piecky, who returned the look with a smile . “Exactly,” Piecky went on. “Aspe died because the tests they ran weren’t perfect. Unless continued survival is itself a test.”

  “What comes next?” asked Snorg.

  Piecky’s shrug was with his whole body.

  “Nothing good, I’m sure… In any case, nothing good for me.” He hesitated. “You see, Snorg, I was able to penetrate the information system that serves us. I saw other rooms, many of them. In each one, the people are our age, or younger. The very young ones sit in front of viewscreens and fill themselves with information. The ones our age do what we are doing now: living, observing, conversing… I haven’t yet found a room with people who are older than us… There’s a kind of information barrier. The system doesn’t answer questions about that… But it will end soon, this. I feel it, Snorg.”

  7

  A strong light hit Snorg in the eyes. For a while he couldn’t focus. Then he became aware that he was no longer in the Room. He was lying on something hard, in a place that seemed vast. He felt terribly alone, because none of his companions was with him. At the other end of the place sat an unknown man. He was very old, but Snorg realized that the man was simply older than those Snorg had been living with. The man, seeing that
Snorg was awake, approached him and extended a hand.

  “My name is Bablyoyannis Knoboblou,” he said.

  Slowly, with an effort of will, Snorg rose from his bedding.

  “Congratulations, Snorg. On this day you become a person. You were the best…”

  Snorg reached and shook the man’s hand, curious to see what the hand felt like.

  “I have here the report of Central”—the man took a few sheets of paper from the desk—“and the decision of the Committee, which is made up of persons… You will receive an identity card and can choose a name.”

  Snorg didn’t understand. The man gave the impression of a kindly clerk who was performing a pleasant yet routine duty.

  “Your results,” Bablyoyannis continued, running an eye over the papers he held. “A 132. Not bad. On my test, I scored 154,” he said with a smile of pride. “That Piecky one got dangerously close to you, with 126 points, but his lack of limbs, genitals… It’s hard to make up for that with intelligence alone… Better that someone like you was chosen and not one of those stumps.”

  Snorg thought, “I’d like to crack your head.” He said, “Piecky is my friend,” and felt the old numbness in his jaw.

  “It’s better not to have friends until you become a person,” observed Bablyoyannis. “Do you want to know how the others did? Moosy—84, Tib—72, Dulf—30… The rest, close to zero. The Dagses scored 18 each, and that ox, Tavegner, 12.”

  Snorg heard the scorn in Bablyoyannis’s voice and felt a growing hatred for the man.

  “What happens to me now?” he asked. The numbness in his face wouldn’t go away.

  “As a person, you have a choice. You will enter the normal life of the society. A short period of training… and then you can either continue studying or take a job. From today, you receive an account with the sum of 400 money, as does everyone who becomes a person. Personally I would advise you not to have cosmetic surgery until you obtain a steady source of income. Ears are not really that important…” He gave Snorg a confidential look. “In time, you’ll be able to save up. There’s always a large selection of parts.”

  Snorg felt cold sweat trickling down his back: he could see Tib before him.

  “What happens to the others?” he finally managed to ask.

  “Ah. Yes… You have the right to know.” Bablyoyannis was trying to be patient. “There are always many more individuals born than individuals who attain personhood. We harvest them for material. Among them, you can find a perfectly good pair of ears, or eyes, or a liver… Though some don’t even possess that. A type like Tavegner is probably good only for tissue cultures…”

  “That’s inhuman,” Snorg couldn’t help saying, through clenched teeth.

  “Inhuman?! No. The war, that was inhuman. Today a hundred percent of the population is born with physical defects, and three-quarters with mental defects. Reproduction, as a rule, is possible only by test tube. Save your indignation for our ancestors.”

  Apparently Snorg didn’t seem convinced, because Bablyoyannis went on: “The birth rate has been maximized, to increase the probability of obtaining normal individuals.” He looked hard at Snorg. “As for the others… They’re the cheapest way for us to produce the organs we need. Because even the chosen aren’t perfect, are they, Snorg?… I’ve been working in this department for seven years now,” Bablyoyannis said, “and I can assure you that this path is the only one that’s right.”

  “You’re not perfect either, Bablyoyannis. You drag your left leg, and your face is partially paralyzed,” said Snorg.

  “I know. It shows.” Bablyoyannis was prepared for that remark. “But I work hard, and I’ve been saving almost all my money… for an operation.”

  8

  Tibsnorg Pieckymoosy began work in the Central Archive of Biological Materials. At the same time, he continued his education. The salary he made was good, but after a pro rata deduction to pay for the care he had received until now, not much remained. Expenditure for food and the rent for a dark little room consumed the rest of his money, so that his paycheck was only symbolic. The food, synthetic, was eaten in a cafeteria. It was an improvement over the IV. In the cafeteria he kept seeing the same people, which was boring, but by his calculations he couldn’t afford a better eating place, one where he would be able to come at different hours. He ex. He exchanged few words with the people he met in the cafeteria. They were all older than he. Some came in wheelchairs, but most could walk. He looked at them carefully: not one was completely normal. Each had deformities.

  Tibsnorg was lucky: had he scored lower than 120 on his test, he wouldn’t have been allowed to continue his education. But he also kept working, because he feared the memories that came with free time. He would pay for all his operations himself, but he didn’t forget who had first helped him stand on his legs and conquer his nerveless body. Also, as a person, he had the right to know the truth, to know—despite the pictures on the viewscreen showing pretty landscapes, people formed correctly, and animals that had once lived-what the world really looked like now. Every five days, after work, he was allowed to go up to the surface and from an observation tower view his surroundings.

  It was a grayish brown waste. Massive gray trucks continually moved across it, carrying loads from different mines. The trucks, he knew, were operated by people who could not have children, because the radiation background on the plain was too high. One of these drivers ate at Tibsnorg’s cafeteria. He looked completely normal and made three times more money than anyone else there, and yet Tibsnorg would not have traded places with him.

  The tests Tibsnorg had done on himself, with his first saved money, showed that he was fertile, though probably only passively, that is, through the collection and storing of his sperm. In a short time he mastered his computer job and was promoted. His new position was administering the decisions made by the division of Central that chose material to harvest from among the living specimens. Central’s decisions were clear, logical, and in general didn’t need correction. A bonus was given for discovering mistakes in them, and Tibsnorg paid close attention to his work. The material was harvested both for the general public hospital and for individuals who at their own cost wanted to reduce their defectiveness. There was plenty of work: several dozen requests came in every day, and with them the decisions, which all had to be read, considered, processed. Soon Tibsnorg established a procedure and began to have free time, which he used to familiarize himself with the computer and learn various facts.

  He remembered Piecky’s words, that because information was a privilege, one had to make the utmost use of it. He learned that the decision whether someone would be a person or not was usually based on a simple sum of scores on tests. There was therefore a fairly large margin of error. He also learned that he had become a person thanks only to Bablyoyannis’s intervention. Bablyoyannis had changed Central’s decision to give Piecky personhood. The number of points Piecky had earned for mental ability had in fact exceeded what Snorg accumulated for physical function, correctness of form, and intelligence. When Tibsnorg read on the viewscreen that Tib had received exactly a zero, he uttered an obscenity.

  He had always been intrigued by the light of day that fell into the Room. Now he learned that it was only a lamp in the visible and the ultraviolet spectrum, a lamp that was turned on and off periodically. The Room was located far beneath the earth. On the surface, he saw the sun only once-a bright-gray disk shining through a thick mist. The sun was better now than it had been; in the time when the earth was covered constantly with snow, the sun never pierced the clouds.

  9

  Tibsnorg became better acquainted with the classification system for biological material. Tib, Piecky, and the others had been given serial numbers, from AT044567743 to AT044567749, and no longer possessed names. It soon happened that from number 44567746—from Moosy—an eye, nose, and one kidney were harvested for cosmetic use. Tibsnorg submitted a memo in opposition to the selection of AT044567746, but it was ignore
d, no doubt outvoted by others who were experts. He was very upset by this.

  Next was the Dags numbered 44567748. The surgery was fatal: from the Dags was taken the esophagus and stomach, liver, intestines, both hands, and penis (though not the testicles). What was left could not live, so the skin, muscles, and bones of the arms were put in a tissue culture bank, and number 44567748 was removed from the database.

  The value of each organ was calculated on the basis of what it had cost to maintain the individual. It was easiest to make such a calculation when the individual’s number was removed, because in that case one simply divided the cost of maintenance of the biological material among the recipients of the organs harvested, by organ (using the proper coefficient). When the organs were not harvested together, the method of calculation applied became complicated and unclear, and Tibsnorg suspected that only the computer system could keep track of it.

  He wondered what number he would have been given, if not for Babylonis. Would it have come after Tib’s?

  At the cafeteria, he no longer sat alone. He began talking with the driver who worked on the trucks that carried loads from the metal mines. The man called himself Abraham Dringenboom, and he was tall, thickset, and extremely proud of his name, which had been dug out of some library of history. Dringenboom had a deep, powerful voice and spoke very loudly, which made Tibsnorg uncomfortable, because ordinarily the cafeteria was silent. It seemed to him that everyone was watching them, though that made little sense, seeing as no one was interested in them. Besides, many of the diners had poor hearing or couldn’t hear at all.

  “Tibsnorg Pieckymoosy…,” boomed Dringenboom. “A strange name. Why did you choose it?”

  “It’s many names,” Tibsnorg replied quietly. “There are many in me.”

  “Hmm,” muttered Dringenboom. “So you made it up… It’s not wise to get too close to the others in your Room… You know, today they said that the average lifespan of a person now is as much as twenty-four years.” He was changing the subject. “I think it’s too good to believe. I think they’re fiddling with the medical statistics a little, so we won’t feel bad.”