Sharon and Jim rematerialized at a hoverdisk rental agency, but Sharon only had to show some sort of a badge to the kindly simianoid clerks to get a vehicle, a big metal disk with a railing for herself and Jim. It lifted, then slowly toured the city.
"Look around," invited Sharon. "You see? The State rules here -- you see the occasional peace officer, like the one we met -- but everyone here gets to work and play and laugh. It's like Earth, but better. There's no disease, no want, no rat race. And there's no war, at least not locally, not on the planet itself. Look."
Jim gulped as they approached a crater. It was surrounded by monuments all of them involving statues of simianoids, many fighting, some meeting in peace.
"These natives had what you always dreaded and managed to avoid: a limited nuclear war. And there was much terrorism afterwards: biological, radiological, you name it. All of it agitated by a steady rise in population. But we keep the peace now. All we ask is that they make as many babies as we want, and that we get our fair share of the babies to raise and train as workers and soldiers. It's simply one form of citizenship getting traded in for another."
Jim was moved by the simianoids' tributes to their own war-torn past.
"You haven't really solved the problem of war," he told her. "All you've done is turn it into an export industry."
"That's what everyone does. You make your peace with the outside world, get what you can out of it, then concentrate on your own back yard."
They returned the hoverdisk, and in a snap they were back in Jim's house.
"As a designated Savage world, only peace and prosperity await the planet Earth," concluded Sharon. "Now, I really must get back to Enni."
Jim slumped into a chair and frowned. It was an argument, not really won, but avoided so neatly and agreeably as to seduce one into a feeling of victory. Yet there was no getting around it. Earth would become a cog, although a happy cog, in a larger war machine.
It was then that something strange occurred to Jim. Left to himself, he was too small -- perhaps all of Earth was too small, and too aimless and mercenary and sex-crazed, to avoid its new destiny under the State. But it was a big universe, and out of nowhere Jim felt a perverse bolt of faith. Surely, State exploitation on Earth would not last forever. He was not sure how or why, but somehow Jim knew, he simply KNEW, that some X factor would intervene, some cosmic quirk that the Low Commander or even a presumed High Commander was not necessarily aware of. for just as surely there was a State, so perhaps there was some other entity, a -- Jim grabbed a random Star Trekky name, idly inspired by his fascination with Enni's body -- Drool Empire, an Empire of people calling themselves Drool or whatever, who could intervene, or at least compete or neutralize or run interference. It was a big universe, and Jim was not so sure, not yet, that Humanity was fated to be some mere footnote in its saga.
"Oh, Jim!" called Enni. "We'd like to talk with you about the android type selection process."
"Sure," said Jim, his spirits suddenly high once more. "I'm coming."
Go back - Go to the parent episode.
Tue Jun 3 12:49:40 2003