A Million Open Doors

by John Barnes

  Carruthers pressed his fingers to his gray-white temples and said, "Then they really have made no study of our culture at all. Surely if they had, they would know that economic dislocations cannot possibly happen here."

  Aimeric cued up three graphs on the big common screen. "In one sense you're right. This will all be temporary anyway, so no matter what you do, even if you have some perverse longing for disaster and go out of your way to cause it, in six or seven stanyears everything will be just fine. So what I'm talking about here is softening a blow."

  "I don't see why a fully rational market should feel any blow at all."

  "I don't have all the data on Caledony yet, and I'll be able to tell you more in a couple of days, but here's what historical experience has been everywhere: In thirty standays, the Bazaar opens in the Embassy compound. In effect that's a giant trade fair and catalog—every culture that has built a springer so far in the Thousand Cultures sends reps and goods. You don't get a choice: it's uncontrolled free trade including prices and quantities."

  "Well, I see that could disrupt other cultures, but with our fully rational—"

  Aimeric just kept pressing the point, as if explaining to a four year old. "No, wait. I mean the prices are uncontrolled. Not the people. You won't be able to freeze or restrict anyone's assets, or set up a structure to make people 'rationally' want what you want them to want. They can draw down their accounts, buy whatever they like, and own it rather than lease it."

  His father got up very slowly, as if something under the table had bitten him and he was bleeding from the wound. He leaned forward, his hands on the table, suddenly looking older. "So in thirty standays we will have no economic self-government at all?"

  "You still have plenty of powers to use as you wish—you can regulate currency and banking, expand or shrink the government budget, raise or reduce taxes—all of that. And you can still set prices and quantities on goods and services in your local market. What you can't do is prohibit or tax interstellar trade, or set prices for it, or touch any property acquired through interstellar trade. You can still control a lot about the economy—you just won't be able to stop people from getting outside of it."

  Carruthers's hands twisted together in front of him like fighting animals. "I still don't—well, no matter anyway. It will still pose no problem for us, except for a test of faith, and there are always plenty of those. We just have to trust that with centuries of training in rationality, our people will want only the things that will make them truly happy."

  Aimeric shook his head like a dazed bull. "What I'm saying is that people are not going to want what you want them to want. And especially the fascination with really owning things individually is going to surprise you." He sighed. "But all that can be set aside. For now at least. Because even if everyone bought exactly what you would want them to want, there would still be trouble."

  Carruthers was plainly having trouble controlling himself as well; he got up and paced. Peterborough looked very worried and seemed about to speak up when Carruthers said, "I suppose you'll have to explain that to me too. I'm listening."

  "I appreciate that." Aimeric tilted his chair back and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "I'm trying to think of the best way to explain the problem. Okay, if they're rational, they'll buy any good that's cheaper than leasing the equivalent good here. Do you grant me that?"

  "You need not lecture your father. I taught you Reason."

  "I know. I remember. I'm sorry if I offended you, sir."

  "I accept your apology. Please proceed."

  "All right. Well, the goods the imports will replace have already been produced, in many cases, and scheduled for production in others. So there will be a lot of surplus inventory, which will have to be cleared by lowering production and prices—but lower prices at one end of the system means lower wages at the other end, and lower production means fewer hours. So everyone will have less money, and there will be a smaller market, and of course the less desirable domestic goods are the ones that people cut back on. Meanwhile money is pouring out to pay for the exports, which drives up your interest rates and thus domestic production costs. So it costs more and more to produce goods that are selling for lower and lower prices in smaller and smaller quantities ... and the whole thing spirals downward. Those are usually called Connect Depressions."

  Peterborough nodded eagerly. "This makes perfect sense, even though nothing quite like it has happened in the last five hundred years or so. So how do we get out of a Connect Depression? Does it self-correct, like a classical free market?"

  "Right. With your prices so low, all of a sudden you've got the cheapest exports in the Thousand Cultures on some items, and you're paying the highest interest rates. Money pours in—and you get rocketing growth and explosive inflation. The system might bounce once or twice through the whole cycle again, but there's a lot of 'drag'—every surge and depression reshapes your culture's economy into better accord with the macro-economy of the Thousand Cultures, so that in a little while, six or seven years, you restabilize at a higher level of production.

  "So in short, the Bazaar will open, and in a few weeks the Connect Depression will start and last two years or more; then after that the Connect Boom will give you towering inflation, for several years following. It's going to be a rough, bumpy ride before things finally settle out.

  "With the right measures we can make sure that everyone just notches the belt a little and gets through. On the other hand, if we just let it go its own way, a few people will do very well and many people will get savaged—which means widespread envy, misery, and anger."

  Aimeric's voice had risen to a very loud, firm tone by the end of that, and he was staring directly at his father. The old man stared back squarely. After a long while, he said softly, "You can prove this?"

  "Yap, stip-subj tot-dob prev-mod-tot," Aimeric replied. I never got good at Reason, but a rough translation would be "Hell, yes." At the time, I thought Aimeric had developed some unaccountable speech defect; my ear had not yet learned to tolerate so many full-stop consonants juxtaposed.

  "Then," Carruthers said very slowly, "the purposes of the Council of Humanity are at least partly rational, in the technical sense, and I think we have to respect the possibility that they have real help to offer us. Under those conditions it's quite reasonable to make all the arrangements immediately— and let me add I am looking forward to your report." He stretched and yawned. "I also think it's fully rational of me to wish that all of this had come up during someone else's term as Chairman, and for a man of my age to feel the need for his First Dark nap."

  Aimeric smiled a little at that and said, "Sir, if the meeting is officially over at this point, might I ask when you won the decision? I confess to not having looked it up."

  Old Carruthers nodded crisply. "Perfectly correct. It would have been irrational of me to be offended by your not looking up information for which you had no immediate need."

  "Dad," Aimeric said, "it was thoughtless of me to mention my not having looked it up. It was graceless and tasteless. It would have cost me only a second's effort to have looked it up, and by expressing some interest in your affairs I might have given you some pleasure. Please accept my apologies— and then do tell me about winning the decision!"

  His father stared very steadily, with no response or connection, into Aimeric's face, until any normal person would have broken away in anger and embarrassment. Aimeric looked back coolly.

  At last old Carruthers said, "By your rules I suppose I should accept your apology. It would cost me nothing and may do you some good. But any pleasure I might take in it would be irrational; and such pleasures are temptations to fall away from the path of Rational Christianity."

  The silence stretched on longer than before. At last the old man said, so softly that I might have missed it, "But I do accept your apology."

  "Thank you," Aimeric said.

  The old man was already headed for the door. "I am afraid I do not feel comfo
rtable with a rush of emotions. I do hope you will all forgive me, but I really do need that nap."

  He was gone before anyone spoke.

  "Extraordinary," Reverend Peterborough said. "I've never seen him like that before, and we've been friends some years." She got up. "I would suspect that choosing work is going to take up the rest of your time in town today. So let's just exchange schedules by com after you get home, and then we'll get together sometime in the next couple of days." She looked around again, smiling at us all. "I am so delighted to have you all here—Caledony so often forgets the good things that are not rational, and I think you will help us remember."

  "Good things that are not rational?" Aimeric asked. "I thought that was—"

  "Heresy." Her smile grew wider. "Quite a few people think so." There was a twinkle in her eye that made me grin foolishly back. I had never liked a plain woman, let alone a slovenly one, so much before. She left with another polite bow.

  I wasn't quite sure how I was going to explain this morning to Marcabru. Maybe I would just wait for his letter, which surely would be along in a day or so. In fact, I was a bit surprised Marcabru hadn't written yet.

  I turned to say something to Aimeric, but he was now staring at the wall, his arms twined around himself, lost in thought.

  No one said anything until Bruce came for us; then Aimeric stood up slowly, and sighed. "Some day, companho, over a great deal of wine, I will do my best to explain to you just what was going on there. But not now. Now we put on ultra-calm faces and go to be interviewed by the Work Assignment Bureau. The people there have no sense of irony, as I recall, so be very sure you don't say anything you don't mean to be taken literally."

  Bruce snickered. "Charlie had to spend four weeks in Morally Corrective Therapy, over and above his work assignments, because he answered the 'describe your ideal job' by telling them he wanted to be a Viking and his lifelong dream was to pillage and burn Utilitopia. So, be very careful."

  THREE

  The Work Assignment Bureau was a big clean space, lighted in cheerful pastels. The only place I had ever seen like it in Noupeitau had been the visitors' lounge in a mental hospital.

  Somewhere in the middle of manure-shoveling the day before, I had come up with an idea, which Bruce had helped me to refine—but no one had told me I would have to find a way to explain it to an aintellect, not to a living, breathing Caledon official. I suppose it had seemed so obvious to Brace and Aimeric that neither of them had thought to mention that.

  Of course, from what I'd seen at the meeting this morning, the difference between an aintellect and a Caledon official might not amount to much.

  After I answered all the initial questions by keyboard, the microphone extended down from the ceiling, and the aintellect asked me what my most preferred job was.

  I thought for one instant of saying something silly—"well, I think I have the looks to be a gigolo," or "do you have any openings for gladiators?" and mentally cursed Brace for telling me that story. Then I made myself relax and began. "What I would like to do is to open an experiential school of Nou Occitan culture."

  "Please define experiential school," the aintellect said.

  "A place where students learn primarily by experience and by skills practice rather then lecture. In effect, the coursework consists of behaving like Occitans in some specific area of endeavor, for the duration of each class."

  The aintellect paused for a moment. Somewhere back in the electronic chaos, a thought formed. "Objection: no real benefit to students or to Caledon society. Occitan thought is not rationalized. Expected results are contamination of Caledon thought with uncanonical premises and an eventual unnecessary heterogeneity of Caledon thought."

  Since this was the one objection Bruce had been sure I would face, I was prepared. "Occitan culture is very complex and it's east to give insult. A Caledon is only safe there because he's tolerated as a kind of social idiot." That had certainly been true of Aimeric's first stanyear. "The only way to function safely in the Occitan culture is to be able to follow the complex cultural system by habit rather than try to remember all the rules at once."

  "Objection," it began. Obviously it had been thinking ahead. "Trade has historically been much smaller between the Caledon and Occitan culture than was economically feasible, amounting only to a slow exchange of economists for art historians and literature instructors. This tends to indicate that very few Caledons will have any desire to do business with Occitan, and there will not be enough rational demand to support your school."

  That sounded like I had carried the previous point, so I allowed myself a little hope. "The historical case is irrelevant," I said, "because it pertains to exchange of information. You can expect material goods to flow in quantity once springer charges come down. Reference interstate trade theory, key names Ricardo, Hecksher, Ohlin." Those were the names Aimeric had given me—he said they'd trigger such a sweeping search that the aintellect probably wouldn't bother to read it and ask me anything about it. Just in case, I kept talking quickly. "You can expect that instead of scholars who've spent years studying Occitan, you'll have lots of naive businessmen going there. You don't want them to establish a reputation as boors." I didn't actually have any facts to back that up with, but it sounded pretty good to me.

  This time the pause went on for a very long time. I looked ill around the little booth for any sign of decoration or desecration, but there was none. Maybe they cleaned it after each interview.

  I thought about the ten million people of Caledony who came through here to have an aintellect tell them what to do with the rest of their lives, and not one of them had left any mark on the space. It gave me a cold, shivering feeling, and I thanked every god I could think of that I would be gone in a stanyear or at most two.

  When the voice came back, it said, "Final objection: The introduction of Occitan culture may create irrational patterns of thought, which in turn may significantly diminish the overall rationality of Caledon society, economy, or polity."

  I didn't know whether "Final objection" was the last test before saying yes or whether it meant that my suggestion had been rejected and this was the grounds. In any case it was the same point as the first one, and I wasn't going to let the aintellect get away with it. As soon as they think they can fool us they start all this nonsense about getting the vote again. "Look," I said, "anyone who is going to become crazy or irrational from going to a Center for Occitan Arts is awfully damned weak in his rationality to begin with. If I'm a corrupting influence at least you'll find out who's ripe to be corrupted. Think of me as an early warning system or something." Deu, I didn't want to spend two stanyears shoveling shit!

  "Clarification request: Expression 'awfully damn' means strong emphasis of what follows?"

  "Awfully damn yes." Well, no doubt I had blown it— having any normal feelings in front of these people seemed to upset them, so no doubt having a full-fledged outburst would convince the aintellect that I was much too crazy to be allowed to teach anything, let alone to offer open access courses. Maybe they'd let me pick through the rotten vegetables or something.

  "Proposal accepted in principle," the aintellect said. "Benefits to include social prophylaxis of irrational and sin-prone individuals, creation of a skills base for possible expanded commercial contact, and validation of existing policy." A panel slid back, revealing a workscreen. "Please enter all requested data so that this agency can establish capital and resource requirements plus make necessary arrangements."

  Still in a mild daze, I answered a lot of questions about floorspace and equipment needed for different activities, numbers of students I was willing to take in the various classes I was planning to offer, and so forth. It took a long time. As I noted in my letter to Marcabru that night, apparently aintellects were more sympathetic and reasonable man people here.

  It was lunchtime—late in First Dark—when we finished and Bruce picked us up. Aimeric had gotten a post as a professor of Occitan literature at the Uni
versity. Bruce and Aimeric tried to explain to me why the University of Caledony would have such a thing as literature studies. I never did understand it really, but it sounded as if since there had never been a high culture without some interest in literature they were keeping it around to see what it might be good for.

  Shouting all that information to each other over the thunder of hail on the cab took up most of the short cat ride through Utilitopia's dark, ice-slick streets to Retail Food and Eating Space Facility Seventeen, which they claimed had good local food. During all my arguing and their explaining, Bieris was quiet.

  As we slipped into the entrance tunnel of the restaurant, I turned to her and said, "What will you be doing?"

  "Bruce is taking me on as a permanent farmhand. I've really enjoyed working on the farm and I just thought I'd keep doing it."

  "You're not just doing this to avoid working over here in the fog and the cold?" I asked. "I know it's gloomy, but—"

  "Well, of course that's a consideration," she said. "But yes, I really do like it."

  There was a long, awkward silence, and then Aimeric began to talk with Bruce about a bunch of people who had been dead for a long time. Bieris didn't look happy with me, but fortunately just then the food arrived.

  Because of the robot-replacement rule, almost every place had human waiters, bartenders, busboys, and so forth. Bieris and I thanked the young man who brought us the food. He seemed startled, so I suppose we were not strictly in accord with local custom.

  It took a little effort to fish the meat out of the thick, salty fat-sauce without getting any more of the sauce onto the potatoes. That gave me some time to think—I really had not meant to offend Bieris, though it was obvious I had. Carefully, I worked my way around to saying that there were some women who simply were genuinely interested in those offbeat occupations even in Nou Occitan, and that a mere unusual interest certainly did not make anyone less of a donzelha. Indeed, by the contrast it might show to her own grace and style, such a job could only enhance the loveliness, particularly of a fine, spirited beauty. I thought that last a nicely done indirect compliment, just at the level of not giving offense to Aimeric while flattering Bieris.