Equality: In the Year 2000 jw-2

by Mack Reynolds

  Edward was a favorite of little Julian’s—one of the few West servants who, when they were alone, treated him as an individual rather than as “the young master.” He spent as much time as Edward could find free talking to the middle-aged, sad-faced servant. Edward had been around for as long as Julian could remember, which was exceptional in the West household. Servants were apt to come and go, particularly when one or the other or both of the Wild Wests got on a nasty binge.

  Julian decided instead to go up to the bridge and see if the captain would let him play around the ship’s controls. Perhaps he could even steer. He loved to steer and usually Captain Fielding didn’t mind on a clear day when the sea wasn’t too choppy.

  He made his way up to the deck and then climbed the aft ladderway to the sundeck. For a time he stood at the fantail rail. The overcast was starting to burn off and the sea was beginning to glint. The yacht was quartering into a northeast wind, the propellers churning up the impossibly blue Bahama waters. Three gulls followed gracefully. He knew that had it been night, there would be a faint green-white phosphorescence in the wake.

  He turned and went foreward to the topside controls, forward of the sundeck. But the captain wasn’t there. The yacht was on autopilot and one of the seamen, the one called Jack, was on watch. Julian instinctively knew that Jack didn’t like small boys, even if he was in no position to do or say anything about it.

  Julian took the co-pilot seat and sat there awhile, his hands in his lap. They were already in the Bahama archipelago, and passing through scores of small islands and islets, coral reefs and shoals. From time to time he could spot colorful birds and once they passed fifteen pelicans standing on a bar in a straight line in a couple of inches of water.

  Julian stood on the co-pilot seat and lifted the two sight vanes of the pelorus atop the gyrocompass. He moved the pelorus around so that he could take a bearing on a small lighthouse on an islet about a mile off. Captain Fielding had shown him how to take a bearing. He wasn’t quite sure why you took a bearing, but he knew it was part of running the ship and he was proud that he could do it.

  Jack said grumpily, “Maybe you shouldn’t do that, boy.”

  Julian looked at the other levelly for a moment. The man had seen Julian playing with the pelorus before, when the captain was present. However, Julian was in no mood to make an issue of it. Even at this early time in life he disliked controversy and avoided it when he could. It was probably a reaction against all the tiffs, the emotional crises, the verbal brawls that were almost the daily diet of the West family.

  He got down from the seat without a word and left. He went down to the lounge and found that there was still no one up. He passed through it, and walked past the galley. He peered in but both his friend Edward and the cook were much too busy to bother with him. He went on down the corridor to the master bedroom. He’d peer in and see if Barry and Betty were still asleep.

  The door was not locked. He opened it and peeked inside. The curtains were drawn at the portholes and the room very dim, but he could make out his father’s form in the bed, though not his mother’s. He could hear water running in the bathroom. Hesitantly, he crept in to check if Barry West was still asleep.

  He approached the side of the bed quietly.

  And then the door to the bath opened and a woman came out, a woman who was completely naked. At first he thought it was his mother but then he realized with a shock that this woman was a brunette; his mother was blonde.

  He shrank back. A closet door, half open, was immediately behind him. She hadn’t seen him as yet. He backed into the closet and softly closed the door until it was only open a crack. Where was his mother?

  Humming softly, the woman approached the bed. The air conditioning wasn’t on, since nights were cool on the ocean, but the sun had come up by now and Barry West, who habitually slept nude, had pushed aside the bedsheet.

  Julian could recognize her now. It was Mrs. Simmons. She was younger than the other guests, and Julian had thought her very pretty. She had done a good deal of gushing over him when he had been presented to her, but he had liked her anyway. Most grown-ups gushed; you got used to it.

  His eyes rounded and he held a hand over his mouth when she reached down to touch his father.

  Although Julian couldn’t see his eyes open in the dimness, his father evidently awoke. He jerked into a half-sitting position and yelped, “Why, you little devil you! Didn’t you have enough last night?”

  Mrs. Simmons giggled and said something in a low, husky voice that Julian couldn’t hear.

  Where was his mother? Could she possibly be in some other cabin—doing things like this with one of the other guests?

  He was about to dash out of the closet and away from the room. But just then a perfunctory knock came at the door and before Mrs. Simmons could jerk away, the door opened and Edward came in, carrying bedding.

  He stood there a moment in confusion, then stammered, “I’m sorry, sir. I thought you were topside, sir. I… I…”

  Mrs. Simmons had turned her head away and put her hands over her face.

  But Barry West, in a high rage, scrambled from the bed and stood up. He roared, “Get out of here, you goddamned ass! Get out! Get out!”

  Edward whirled and stumbled out, hurriedly closing the door behind him.

  Julian closed the closet door completely and backed as far into the closet as he could, trembling all over.

  In the stateroom beyond, he could hear voices, his father’s shaking in anger, but with a tone of soothing reassurance. And he could hear clothing rustling. He hoped beyond all hope that there would be no need for Barry West to get something from this closet.

  His prayer was answered, since after about ten minutes there were no more sounds from the cabin. Julian carefully edged the door open just a trifle. There was no one in the stateroom. He crept out and hurried for the door.

  As he ran down the corridor, breathing heavily, his mother came out of one of the guest cabins. She was dressed in a night robe, and, as always, looked so pretty to the young boy.

  She eyed Julian with surprise. “Why, Jule, what are you doing up and around?”

  He stuttered a bit and managed to say, “I… I was just going up to the bridge, Mama. Uh, to see if the captain would let me steer.”

  She looked at him. “Well, run along. I’ll be up for breakfast a little later.”

  When he got back up to the sundeck, he was still terribly shaken. They were entering the beautiful Nassau harbor, heading for the Prince George Wharf. He had been to Nassau once before and knew the routine. The captain would be on the bridge now, directing the docking, asking for port instructions on the FM-UHF marine radio, handling the wheel himself. He would have no time for little Julian, who would only be in the way. Julian remained where he was, watching.

  A docking always fascinated him. Jack was up forward and the other crewman in the stern, both with coils of rope in their hands. As they came in slowly, neatly, to within a few yards of the dock, the crewmen heaved their lines and the shore hands on the dock grabbed them up and dropped the loops over the iron bollards. The deck winches grumbled and took in the slack of the lines and slowly snubbed the length of the yacht against the wharf. More lines went out. The deep groaning of the engines stopped. The two crewmen hurried midship and shortly the gangplank was swung out and latched.

  His father joined him. He was scowling, obviously still irritated. And Jules knew the reason. He was dressed in yachting clothing, including an officer’s cap.

  He asked, “Have you had breakfast, Jule?”

  “No, Daddy.”

  “Don’t call me Daddy, for Christ’s sake, it makes me feel old. Call me Father. Come along, we’ll get something to eat and then go ashore. I have some things to do before it gets too goddamned hot.”

  They went into the small dining room, across from the galley, and the cook himself served them.

  “Where in the hell’s that stupid bastard Edward?” Barry West demanded.<
br />
  “I don’t know, sir,” the cook told him.

  Julian suspected that Edward was keeping as far away from his father as possible, hoping the ship’s owner would cool off.

  Barry West at the age of thirty was a handsome man, although there was a somewhat petulant quality about his mouth. However, when he had a hangover, or was more than ordinarily upset about something, young Julian hated to look at him. He was capable of bad tempers and on the few occasions he had physically punished his son, it had been more violent than the size of the boy warranted.

  They ate their breakfast in silence, except for Barry West’s comment, “I don’t know why in the hell I’m letting you tag along. I suppose it won’t do you any harm to stretch your legs a bit.”

  Julian didn’t say anything to that. He would just as well not have accompanied his parent, but he was afraid to say so for fear of irritating the other still further.

  Ashore, they headed down the wharf and in the direction of Bay Street. The last time they had been in Nassau, it was his mother who had taken Julian ashore. She had had some shopping to do and his father had been too drunk to accompany them. In fact, he hadn’t gone ashore for the full time they had been on the island of New Providence.

  The souvenir and other stores fascinated Julian. They had touristy names, and merchandise to go with them. The Trade Winds, the Island Shop, the English China House, Solomon’s Mines, the Nassau Shop, the John Bull. The bars had names such as Blackbeard’s Tavern and Dirty Dick’s. The souvenirs consisted of lots of straw things, hats, dolls, postcards, pillows with Nassau painted in large letters upon them, canes with Nassau burnt into their length, but above all, things of straw.

  His father had him by the hand, hurrying him along through the pedestrians, impatient with the boy’s attempt to look at the store displays.

  Then he stopped abruptly. “What in the hell are you doing off the yacht?”

  It was Edward, a look of consternation on his face. He was carrying two packages.

  He said, “The captain gave me permission, Mr. West. I had promised my wife I’d pick up a souvenir for her and one for my little girl.”

  “Oh, he did, eh? Well, listen here, Mr. Peeping Tom, you can just go back to the ship and pack your things and get the hell off. Get what pay’s coming to you from Captain Fielding, but be the hell off the yacht by the time I get back.”

  The other, a tremble in his voice, pleaded, “Sir, please. I need the job. I’ve been with you for a long time. Jobs aren’t the easiest thing in the world to get these days. Especially at my age.”

  “My heart is bleeding for you,” Barry West snarled. “Get your pay and get off the ship.”

  “Mr. West, the amount of pay I have coming isn’t even enough to get me back to Miami and my family.”

  “That’s no damned skin off my nose,” Julian’s father said. “Come on, Jule.” He pulled the boy by the hand.

  Julian looked back over his shoulder in despair.

  His friend said, “Good-bye, Julian.”

  “Good-bye, Edward,” Julian responded miserably.

  “Shut up and keep moving,” said his father.

  It was then the dream ended. With the realization that he did not like his father and mother, Julian woke up.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Year 2, New Calendar

  I pray that the imagination we uncloak for defense and arms and outer space may yet be uncloaked as well for grace and beauty in our daily lives. As an economy, we need it. As a society, we shall perish without it.

  —Adlai Stevenson

  Revolutions are not made; they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back.

  —Wendell Phillips

  He was not in the usual sweat brought on by the nightmares filled with memories of blood and horror and human suffering, but he was quite distressed.

  Edith, her head on the pillow next to him, asked, “What’s wrong, Jule?”

  “Bit of a nightmare, I guess,” he told her. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? You mean to tell me you have upsetting dreams?”

  “’Upsetting dreams’ is a gentle way of putting it. I’ve had them all my life, these nightmares. They’re evidently more vivid than most people’s from what all the headshrinkers have told me.”

  She sat up in bed. She hadn’t bothered to put on a nightgown before they fell asleep. Her body was superb, but right now he was in no mood for sex.

  She said, “We must go and see Father immediately!”

  “Why?”

  But she had already hurried from the bed in the direction of the apartment’s order box to send for clothing. She said over her shoulder, “To tell him about your dreams.”

  He shrugged, but got himself up and went into the bath. He in no way wanted to discuss his nightmares with Dr. Leete, but he supposed there was no choice. Supposedly he was still under medical care.

  Dressed, they didn’t take their breakfast in his apartment but headed immediately down the hall to the Leete quarters. He hadn’t the vaguest idea what Edith’s father and mother thought about his relationship with their daughter. In his own time, people had at least paid lip service to appearances. But here he was, sleeping with Edith, and seemingly it was of no importance whatsoever to them. Well, at least hypocrisy wasn’t involved; certainly that was progress in the development of human relations.

  The academician, his expression disgruntled, was staring into the library booster screen on the living room desk. He looked up when Edith and Julian entered.

  “Ridiculous!” he said, gesturing at the screen.

  “What’s ridiculous. Father?” Edith asked.

  He looked at her, closing one eye in disgust. “My looking at the news. Every time I do, I become irritated.”

  She sighed as though she had been through this before. “What is the world currently doing that you disapprove of?”

  “This star probe to the Alpha Centauri system. Ridiculous!”

  Julian asked with some surprise, “Has the space program gotten to that point?”

  “No. That’s why it’s ridiculous,” Leete said. “Do you know what that robot spacecraft will find when it gets to Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, assuming that the two companion stars have habitable planets?”

  “No. What?”

  “It’ll find men who have been there possibly for years.”

  “Whatever are you talking about, Father?”

  “About going off half-cocked. Why not wait another decade or two until we know more about space drive? What’s the hurry? It’s the same story all over again. Back in the 1950s when the United States and the Soviet Union began exploring space, instead of getting together—and utilizing German and British science as well—America went racing off. Billions upon billions of dollars, billions of man-hours of our top scientists and technicians, millions of tons of materials that were needed elsewhere.”

  Julian said, “They made it, though. Landing a man on the moon was one of the biggest events in my time.”

  The academician flicked off the screen in a gesture of disgust. “They made it; they put a man on the moon—two men, as I recall. Now, suppose they had taken their time, amalgamated their efforts with the Russians and any other interested countries: united effort would have cut the cost in half, and twice as much probably would have been learned.”

  Edith said patiently, “What has that got to do with the Alpha Centauri probe?”

  “It’s the same situation. What’s the hurry? In ten years we will have twice the information we have now. For all I know, we’ll have figured out a faster-than-light drive. By the time this ridiculous robot space probe gets to the vicinity, there’ll already be men there, waiting for it—if there’s any suitable place there for waiting.”

  Julian was out of his depth, as usual.

  “All right,” Edith said. “According to Stephen Dole, the F2 to Kl stars are of the spectral classes that might be suitable
for the nurturing of planets habitable by mankind, planets that can be colonized. Sooner or later, we’ve got to reach out. This is the first step.”

  “But premature! What is the damned hurry? Only twenty-five thousand years ago, we were painting bison and deer on the walls and ceilings of our caves. Why can’t we slow down a bit these days and wait until we’ve progressed a little further before sending out inadequate expeditions that will be anachronisms five years after they’ve taken off?”

  Edith said, “Perhaps you’re right. However, we’ve got another problem on our hands at this moment. Jule has recurring nightmares.”

  “Nightmares? In this day and age?”

  Julian said wearily, “Remember, I’m not of this day and age.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  Edith interrupted, “I’ve got an errand to run for Jule. When this project began, our job was to take care of him as if he were a four-year-old child. Now we’ve gotten to the point where we’re running around on his projects.” She grinned at him to take the edge off her words, then turned to leave. “I’ll pick up breakfast somewhere along the way. I want to get to the museum when it first opens.”

  When she was gone, the doctor waited for Julian to begin.

  “It’s nothing important. I’ve had them since I was a kid. Very vivid. I usually wake up sweating. I saw an auto accident once when I was about twelve years old. Four people killed. They looked like mincemeat. The first dead persons I had ever seen. I’ve dreamed about it since then about once every two months. I know it’s abnormal, but I’ve been to a multitude of doctors, from psychiatrists to acupuncture specialists, and it’s never done me any good.”