David Brin - The Practice Effect

They looked at each other. A tall, stout man answered, “Uh, what war you talkin’ about, Grem? There’s lots of ’em, all the time. The one when th’ Baron’s dad kicked out the old Duke? Or this trouble Kremer’s havin’ with the King…?”

Dennis turned and shouted, “The Big War, you idiots! The one that destroyed your ancestors! The one that threw you back to living off the dregs of your forefathers… their self-lubricating roads… their indestructible handkerchiefs!”

He brought a hand to his throbbing head as a dizzy spell struck. The others whispered to each other.

Finally a short, dark man with a very black beard shrugged and said, “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man. We’ve got it better’n our ancestors ever had it. An’ our grandchildren’ll have it better’n us. That’s called progress. Ain’t you heard of progress? You from someplace that has ancestor worship, or somethin’ backward like that?”

He looked genuinely interested. Dennis let out a faint moan of despair and stumbled on, followed by a growing entourage.

He passed prisoners working in a vegetable garden. The neat rows of green seedlings seemed normal enough. But the implements the gardeners used were of the flint and tree-branch variety he had seen at Tomosh Sigel’s house. He pointed to the rakes and hoes.

“Those tools are new, right?” he demanded of Teth.

The old man shrugged.

“Just as I thought! Anything new is crude and, barely better than sticks and stones, while the rich get to hoard all the best remnants of your ancestors’ ancient—”

“Uh,” the small, dark man interrupted, “these tools are for the rich, Gremmie.”

Dennis snatched a flintheaded hoe out of the hands of one of the nearby farmers and waved it under the short fellow’s nose. “ These? For the rich? In an obviously hierarchical society like yours? These tools are crude, barbaric, inefficient, clumsy—”

The fat gardener he had taken the tool from protested, “Well, I’m doin’ my best! I just got started on it, fer heaven’s sake! It’ll get better! Won’t it, guys?” He snuffled. The others muttered in agreement, apparently coming to the conclusion that Dennis was somewhat of a bully.

Dennis blinked at the apparent non sequitur. He hadn’t said anything about the farmer at all. Why did he take it personally?

He looked about for another example— anything else to get through to these people. He turned and spotted a group of men at the far end of the courtyard. They were not dressed in crude homespun. Instead they wore finery of the most brilliant and eye-pleasing shades. Their clothing shimmered in the afternoon light.

These men were engaged in a series of mock fencing bouts using wooden dowels instead of swords. A few guards lounged about, watching them.

Dennis had no idea why these aristocrats and their guards were here in the prison yard, but he seized the opportunity. “ There!” he said, pointing. “Those clothes those men are wearing are old, aren’t they?”

Although it was now less friendly, the crowd nodded in agreement.

“They were made by your ancestors, then, right?”

The small, dark man shrugged. “I suppose you could say so. So what? It doesn’t matter who makes somethin’. It’s whether you keep it up that counts!”

Were these people blind to history? Had the holocaust that destroyed the marvelous old science of this world so traumatized them that they shied away from the truth? He walked purposefully over to where the dandies fenced by the wall. A bored guard looked up lazily, then returned to his nap.

Dennis had quite lost his head by now. He shouted at the prisoners who had followed him. “You don’t deny that aristocrats get the best, and coincidentally the oldest, of everything?”

“Well, sure…”

“And these aristocrats are wearing only old things. Right?”

The crowd erupted in laughter. Even some of those in the bright clothes stopped their dour mock swordfights and smiled. Old Teth gave Dennis a gap-toothed grin. “ They’s not rich people, Denniz. They’s poor prisoners like us. They’s just built like some of the Baron’s cronies. ‘If you can wear a rich man’s clothes, you will wear a rich man’s clothes, whether you want to or not!’ ” It sounded like an aphorism.

Dennis shook his head. His subconscious was spinning and seemed to be trying to tell him something.

“Imprisoned for being ’built just like’ the Baron… that’s what Tomosh Sigel’s aunt said happened to the kid’s dad….” Someone nearby gasped aloud, but Dennis continued talking to himself, faster and faster.

“The rich force the poor to wear their gaudy clothes for them, day in, day out… but that doesn’t fray the clothes, wearing them out. Instead…”

Someone was talking urgently nearby, but Dennis’s mind was completely full. He wandered aimlessly, paying no attention to where he was going. Prisoners made way for him, as men do for the sainted or the mad.

“No,” he mumbled, “the clothing doesn’t wear out—because the rich get someone built like them to wear their clothes all the time, to keep them in…”

“Excuse me, sir. Did you mention the name of…”

“… to keep them in practice!” Dennis’s head hurt. “Practice!” he said it again and pressed his hands to his head at the craziness the word made him feel.

“… did you mention the name of Tomosh Sigel?”

Dennis looked up and saw a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing the finery of a fabulously wealthy magnate—though Dennis now knew him for a prisoner like himself. Something about the man’s face looked familiar. But Dennis’s mind was too cluttered to give it more than an instant’s thought.

“Bernald Brady!” Dennis shouted and struck his palm. “He said there was a subtle difference in physical law here! Something about the robots seeming to get more efficient…”

Dennis patted his jacket and pants. He felt lumpy objects. The guards had taken his belt and pouch but left the contents of his pockets alone.

“Of course. They didn’t even notice them,” he whispered half frantically. “They’ve never seen zippered pockets before! And those zippers have had practice getting to be better and better zippers ever since I got here!”

The crowd suddenly grew hushed as he zipped one pocket open and drew out his journal. Dennis flipped the pages.

“Day One,” he read aloud. “Equipment terrible. Cheapest available. I swear I’ll get even with that S.O.B. Brady someday…” He looked up, smiling grimly. “And I will, too.”

“Sir,” the tall man persisted, “you mentioned the name of...”

Dennis flipped ahead, tearing at the pages. “Day Ten… Equipment much better than I’d thought…1 guess I must have been mistaken, at first.…”

But he hadn’t been mistaken! The stuff had simply improved!

Dennis snapped the notebook shut and looked up. For the first time since arriving on this world, he saw.

He saw a tower that had become, after many generations, a great castle—because it had been practiced at it for so long!

He saw gardening tools that would day by day get better with use, until they were like the marvels he had seen on the steps of Tomosh Sigel’s house.

He turned and looked at the men around him. And saw…

“Cavemen!” he moaned.

“I won’t find any scientists or machinists here, because there aren’t any! You don’t have any technology at all, do you?” he accused one prisoner. The fellow backed away, obviously having no idea what Dennis was talking about.