Equality: In the Year 2000 jw-2

by Mack Reynolds

They were nearing the square and the French Embassy. Julian could see two tanks within the iron fence which surrounded the building, the long cannon snoots pointed in the direction of the yelling, screaming demonstraters. There were quite a few legionnaires standing at ease on the Embassy lawn, with rifles or submachine guns in hand.

  “Another anti-riot device, invented—surprise, surprise—in Germany. There’s one up ahead,” London said.

  It looked like nothing so much as a gasoline truck, except that the windows were barred, and what appeared to be twin machine guns were mounted on top of the cab.

  Roy slipped into a doorway and pulled Julian in beside him. “They shoot water at an unbelievable pressure, stronger than any firefighting equipment ever heard of. The next day the newspaper says, ‘The police turned water on the mob and dispersed it.’ Sounds innocuous to the reader, but it’s deadly.” Suddenly he grabbed Julian by the arm and hauled him deeper into their shelter. “Look out,” he snapped.

  A sizable element of the mob had spotted the vehicle and were running toward it, screaming in protest.

  The two muzzles of the hoses atop the cab opened up and double streams of water, seemingly no thicker than a pencil, shot out.

  The screams were suddenly cut off. The Moroccans were hurled back, smashed up against the brick building behind them, thrown to the sidewalk, tumbling and spilling, driven back by the unbelievable pressure.

  For a moment, a confused, terrified child stood alone. The water spray hit him before he could turn to run. It hit him at waist level and traversed his body, cutting him in two.

  It was the child prostitute who had accosted Julian earlier.

  Julian awoke in his bed in the high-rise apartment building of the University City. He was wringing with sweat.

  Chapter Three

  The Year 2, New Calendar

  The potentialities of science and technology for the benefit of mankind as a whole are almost inconceivably great, but the preparations which we are making for their use and development are pitiably small.

  —Lord Brain, Science and Man

  When Julian entered the breakfast nook, the three Leetes were already at the table but evidently hadn’t ordered yet. He was still somewhat shaken by the nightmare. The child’s death had been the most horrible he had ever witnessed. And it couldn’t have been more useless. Within a month or so, the French had capitulated and the Sultan, Mohammed V, had returned to his throne. Much good it had done the Moors.

  They went through the standard morning greetings and Julian seated himself.

  Doctor Leete said, “We put off deciding on breakfast until you joined us. I suggest we have Eggs à la Julian, your formula for shirred eggs that you introduced to us the other morning. Martha didn’t have breakfast with us that day.”

  “Very well,” Martha Leete agreed. “But only if Jule will submit to one of my recipes for lunch. I too am an amateur cook, Julian, with quite a few of my concoctions on file in the building’s kitchen data banks.” She made a move. “I wonder if anyone else ever orders them.”

  The doctor dialed the breakfast.

  Edith asked, “Did you sleep well?”

  “Very well,” Julian lied.

  “After slumbering over thirty years, beating Rip Van Winkle’s record hands down, I’d think you’d never need to sleep again,” she said, the sides of her mouth turning down in amusement.

  All over again it came to him what an attractive young woman she was—and the fact that she would never be his. Their differences, no matter how small they might seem on the surface, were insurmountable.

  The center of the table dropped down, to return with their breakfast. It was identically prepared to that of the other morning when he had first dictated the recipe into the kitchen data banks, and identically delicious.

  “But this is wonderful,” Martha exclaimed. “As I recall the food when I was a girl, it was on the grim side.”

  Julian thought about that as he ate. “I suppose that for every flow of tide, there’s an ebb. It’s true that back in the 1960s and ’70s, food as a whole was deteriorating. But, in rebellion, there was an increasing number of people who were boycotting drive-in hamburger stands, cafeterias and so forth, and cooking their own would-be gourmet meals in their homes. All over the country, gourmet food stores, natural food farms and such were springing up. I used to know a chap who practically hand-raised beef. He fed the steers largely with mash saturated with beer, and kept them in stalls, never allowing them to graze. Every day, each steer was massaged. The beef produced was superlative. You had to buy a whole steer, which he had butchered for you, and you put it down in a deep freeze.”

  “It must have cost a fortune,” Doctor Leete said.

  “I imagine,” Julian replied. “I wouldn’t know. My chef used to pick it up. Price was no object.” He looked over at the doctor’s wife. “The grim food was eaten by those who couldn’t afford such luxuries.”

  Edith said, a bit tartly, “Had you no qualms about eating the best while most of your countrymen—”

  “None whatsoever. We of the elite believed that we deserved the best.”

  “Who decided you were the elite?” she inquired sarcastically.

  “We did,” he said, amused at her snide tone.

  “Hmmm,” Leete interjected. “The party roughens. Let’s change the subject.”

  Julian put his fork down. “You know,” he began, “my stay here with you has afforded me the epitome of hospitality, but it can’t extend forever. I feel I am imposing. Isn’t there some manner in which I could acquire quarters of my own, so I wouldn’t be always under foot? A single room would be ample.”

  Leete chuckled. “There is already an apartment at your disposal, Julian. And it has been since you came out of hibernation. It is on the same floor as this one, and you can move in whenever you wish. Of course, there are no restraints upon you whatsoever. If you wish, you can move to some other area of the country, take a house or cottage—or even acquire a mobile home, if you like. However, it has been the earnest hope of the University that you would remain in residence for a time at least, for additional observation and later, perhaps, for some lectures about your experiences.”

  “It’s wonderful here,” Julian said quickly. “’You’ve all been most kind. However, I would like my own quarters. But how do I pay for such an apartment.?”

  “The rent is deducted from your Guaranteed Annual Income. As is everyone else’s.”

  Julian frowned. “You mean, everybody pays the same rent, no matter how large the house or apartment?”

  “Oh, no. The amount each citizen receives annually is large enough that he can do just about anything he wishes, but it is not infinite, obviously. Thus, some have larger apartments or homes than average, if that is what they particularly like. Others would rather spend less for rent, living in smaller quarters, and devote what they save to, say, travel—such places as Nepal, for mountain climbing, or Switzerland for skiing. Others are boating fans, possibly combined with such related sports as skin diving, fishing, water skiing and such. Some people, indeed, don’t have apartments or houses at all, but live on boats for which they also must pay rent. Oh, there are many ways to spend your credits on things other than high rents.”

  “I see. Well, following breakfast, could you show me my apartment?” He added somewhat ruefully, “I won’t have much packing to do. In fact, I’m all packed. Everything I own is in my pockets.”

  “Certainly.” The doctor had finished his breakfast. He put down his utensils. “Why don’t we go now?”

  Julian West’s quarters were only a short way down the corridor.

  The doctor said, “It was thought that to be handy to us in this manner would enable you to easily check if anything comes up you don’t understand. You are, of course, perfectly free to drop in on us at any time. My family is still assigned to adapting you to this new world.”

  “Very kind of you,” Julian murmured.

  Evidently the identity screen
of the apartment had already been set to pick up his features; the door opened automatically at his approach.

  He found the apartment more than satisfactory, though it gave him a somewhat impersonal feeling. He was going to have to work at locating some art objects, make a few changes in the furniture, acquire a differently colored rug.

  While the doctor patiently sat in the living room which featured a window that composed the whole wall overlooking the university campus, Julian explored the place. Living room, bedroom, bath, small dining room, kitchenette complete with breakfast alcove, a study. The apartment was smaller than that of the Leetes, true, but amply spacious.

  Exploration through, he returned to the living room and the doctor.

  Leete came to his feet. “I’ll leave you now so you can accustom yourself to your new home. I assume you are fully acquainted with such matters as ordering from the kitchen and from the ultra-market, how to utilize the TV phone, and the National Data Banks library booster, your auto-teacher and so forth. But of course you are: you’ve been using them in my own apartment.”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  “Very well. Drop by as soon as you wish, my boy.” The doctor smiled. “Imagine me calling you that. I find it hard to accept that you are older than I am.”

  Julian smiled too.

  He left and for a moment, Julian wasn’t sure that he didn’t wish to follow Leete back to his apartment. Aside from the doctor, his wife, and Edith, Julian knew no one in this world. Or, at least, not in this part of it. There were surely past acquaintances throughout the country, who were still alive. By now they would be in their sixties, at least, and most in their seventies or more, but, sooner or later, he would get around to looking them up.

  He could hardly have mentioned it to Leete, but his main reason for remaining in the Julian West University City was the fact that he was in love with Edith Leete. Though he had accepted that a permanent relationship with her was not possible, he still wanted to be near her, no matter how frustrating the contact.

  He puttered around for a time, getting used to his new surroundings. The large window in the living room gave him the uncomfortable feeling of being in a goldfish bowl. He was on the fiftieth floor of the high-rise apartment building, however, and it was unlikely that anyone could see into his quarters. Then he noticed a dial at the side of the window. To his surprise, twisting it made the window go from completely clear to completely opaque. The day was superlative, so he returned it to transparency.

  Well, his determination was to learn Interlingua as rapidly as possible. He entered the study and seated himself before the auto-teacher and activated it. In spite of everything that Edith and the others had said, he was going to make every effort to bring himself up to date at least to the point where he could communicate intelligently in this world of the year 2 New Calendar.

  At that moment the door hummed.

  He got up and went back into the living room. The door screen showed that it was Edith and someone he didn’t know. He activated the door and greeted them.

  The stranger was a young man in his mid-twenties who looked amazingly healthy and alert; tall, blond, Scandinavian in appearance. It occurred to Julian that all the young people he had seen since coming out of stasis were unbelievably fit looking. In a world where all received the best nourishment and the best of medical care from cradle to grave, he supposed the unattractive in appearance would be few indeed.

  Edith smiled with her usual charm. “Julian, this is Sean Mathieson O’Callahan. He’s a fellow student of anthropology.”

  The two men shook hands. “Well, now I know four persons in this era. Come in,” said Julian.

  He offered them seats.

  “That’s quite an imposing name you have,” he said to the newcomer.

  O’Callahan replied, “I think we’ve changed the method of naming since—since your time. We now follow the system the Spanish utilized. Sean, of course, is my given name. Mathieson is my father’s name, and O’Callahan is my mother’s. In short, descent is matrilineal, as it was through most of human history. It’s based on the truism that it’s a wise man who knows who his father is, but everyone knows his mother.”

  Edith laughed. “I told you he was an anthropologist.”

  Julian asked, “How is one named if the father isn’t known?”

  “We just use the mother’s name then,” O’Callahan said. “It’s not particularly important. There is no such thing as illegitimacy.”

  “While we were waiting for you to come out of hibernation, we investigated your background, Jule,” said Edith. “Your mother’s name, maiden, was Van Hass, so by our usage your full name is Julian West Van Hass. Your parents were the famous jet set members, Barry and Betty—the Wild Wests, as they were called.”

  Julian nodded. “They were killed in a racing accident when I was quite young. I don’t remember them too well. I didn’t see much of them. I was usually in school, and they’d be off somewhere, father playing polo in the Argentine or participating in glider competitions in Austria, or the two of them winning automobile rallies in France. They earned their names… the Wild Wests.”

  “Something like Scott and Zelda?” Edith asked.

  He looked at her. “I suppose so. You’ve read about the Fitzgeralds?”

  “Yes, of course. I was always fascinated by their story. What a waste of talent when he died in his forties.”

  “It wasn’t wasted,” Julian said. “He simply burned himself out in a comparatively few years. Some of his contemporaries, such as Sinclair Lewis and possibly Hemingway and Steinbeck, wrote on after they should have stopped. My parents were friends of the Fitzgeralds and Hemingway. In fact, I knew Papa myself.”

  “Zen!” Sean exclaimed. “Imagine having actually met Hemingway!”

  “He was his own best character,” Julian said.

  Edith bent forward. “You see why you are of such importance to us, Jule. You actually knew Hemingway. I understand he drank.”

  He looked at her. “Are you kidding?”

  “That’s what I mean,” she said. “You knew Hemingway. How recently did you see him?”

  “Why about eight—” He stopped, and there must have been something in his face.

  Edith said quickly, “Jule, Jule, I’m sorry.”

  He changed the subject. “Why aren’t we speaking in Interlingua?”

  Sean O’Callahan said somewhat shyly, “If you don’t mind, I’d just as soon speak English. If you don’t keep in practice with a language it falls away from you.”

  “You’ve studied English, then?”

  “Yes, but not particularly so.” He smiled in self-depreciation. “I learned it at home as a youngster. You see, my parents were die-hard conservatives. While the rest of the country was going all out to master the new international tongue, converting to the metric system, recycling their old gasoline automobiles, Mother and Dad struck stubbornly to English, and to inches, feet and miles, pints and quarts and all the rest of it, and they kept their overgrown Buick until it fell apart.”

  Edith laughed.

  Sean said, “At any rate, although I learned Interlingua as soon as I attended school, we spoke English at home.”

  “Well,” Julian told him, “since you’re a guest, I give in. But I, too, need practice—in Interlingua.”

  Edith said, “I brought Sean over since Father thinks you should be meeting more of our contemporaries. And Sean has been nagging me since you were first revived.”

  Julian nodded. “It’s just as interesting for me to meet you. By your appearance, I assume you were born while I was still in stasis.”

  “Yes, I am twenty-six years of age.”

  “Oh, then you had your first Muster Day last year, as I understand the institution. The day when the computers either select you for some job… or don’t.”

  The younger man was rueful. “Didn’t, in my case. My field is history, archaeology, and anthropology. The need for teachers and field workers is rather minima
l. I wasn’t chosen by the Aptitude Quotient computers. I’ll keep working away at it as a student but I rather doubt if I will ever be selected for a job. When only two percent of the population can do all the necessary work, you don’t have much of a chance. This year, only a couple of dozen graduates were selected from our university city to go into the field of archaeology.

  Julian shook his head. “Tough luck. It’s directly opposite from my time. In those days, most people who could get out of work did so. Under this socioeconomic system, with everyone trained in the field they like best, you practically all want to work and there is no need for you.”

  “That’s right,” Sean said, his voice still rueful. Then, “Do you mind if I ask you some questions, Mr. West?”

  “Julian, or better still, Jule. Certainly you may, if you grant me the same privilege. Fire away.”

  “You were in Vietnam, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “A combat soldier?”

  Julian nodded cautiously. Like most combat men, he didn’t particularly like to recall his experiences. He had found long since that those who talked most about military action had usually seen the least.

  Sean pulled at the lobe of his right ear. “As an historian, it fascinates me.”

  Julian frowned. “But the Vietnam War ended only a bit over thirty years ago. There must be a good many veterans among your older people. A man who was your age in the latter Vietnam years would only be in his mid-fifties or so now.”

  But the other shook his head. “After thirty years you don’t remember actual events with a great deal of accuracy. In fact, some authorities claim that after a quarter of a century you usually don’t have correct memory at all, but only memories of memories. I have talked to a good many soldiers but not very satisfactorily. But you… for you it is as though it happened just the other day. In your memory, how long has it been since you were in action?”

  “A few months,” Julian replied uncomfortably. Now that he thought about it, Doctor Leete had told him much the same thing.