Gregory Benford: Jupiter Project

“C’mon. relax,” Zak said. He tapped his console. Rebecca and Isaac jerked and moved. They got into a new position. Then they were at it again. Bam, bam, bam.

“Kind of repetitious, isn’t it?” I murmured.

“You should’ve been here, a couple of hours ago,” Ishi said. “Ol’ Zak here had them going at it like rabbits. Double the speed, Zak.”

He did. We all burst out laughing.

“Not a very dignified act, is it?” I commented.

“Dignified, schmignified,” Zak said. “It’s the real stuff.”

“No, it’s just a sim.”

“I didn’t notice you falling asleep.”

“Okay, okay, it’s pretty good, in fact, damned good.”

Ishi asked idly. “I wonder if that’s what those porno movies are like?”

Zak nodded. “That’s what gave me the idea.”

“To duplicate pornos?”

“Sure. Commander Aarons isn’t going to let that kind of thing come in over the 3D tightbeam. But if we can make them here… ”

I started to see it. “Ah. You’re going to sell tapes of your talented Rebecca?”

“I don‘t see why not.”

I slapped my brow. “Zak the flak. Geez, you’ll do anything for money.”

Zak said airily, “ideas have a momentum of their own, Matt-o. That’s one of the lessons of history.”

“They’ll nail you. They’ll uncover it in the memory files.”

He arched his eyebrows. “You imagine I would overlook such a vital facet of the problem? I see you have inadequate respect for the jewellike clarity of my mind.”

“Okay, okay, what’s your out?”

“I have a storage place they’ll never find. Absolutely safe.”

“Where?” Ishi asked.

“Come now. Professional secret.”

“So you work out a whole set of pornos,” I said, “and then sell the index code, so kids can tap into it?”

“There will be a random resorting of the index, of course, from time to time. To keep the customers from giving the information away. Only I will know the basic location.”

Ishi said, “Free enterprise, he calls it.”

“Look, somebody’s got to do something to liven it up around here.”

I smiled. “So you think there’ll be a big market for your machine-made porno movies?”

“Why not? The stuff we get from Earthside is all oatmeal puree. Entertainment for all the family. Bor ing.”

“So you figure to sell them to everybody?”

Zak shook his head. “Why would adults want them? Hell, they’ve got all the sex they need.”

Ishi laughed. “I think you’re a little naive about your marketing strategy. Zak.”

“Oh. yeah? Wouldn’t you lay out some coin of the realm to see ol’ Rebecca doing her thing?”

Ishi nodded. “Maybe. But it would have to be really good.”

“Look, you guys,” Zak said energetically, “let’s cut the crap. We all know the Can is a tightly run ship, in more ways than one. Here we are, nearly eighteen years old, and not a single one of us has gotten laid. Right?”

“Right.” I said sourly.

“That means there’s a lot of repressed impulses floating around.”

“Which you’ll make a buck out of.”

“Well…maybe. I’ll tell you one thing, this move of mine has made me think about our tight little tribe here. They give us all these up-to-date courses and we have social mixers and all that, sure. But the plain fact is that we live in each other’s hip pockets. There’s no privacy. Your family is always just around the corner.”

Ishi said, “Like some incredibly small town.”

“Check. You know how in schools back Earthside. they give you an essay to write on what you did on your summer vacation?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what everybody knows is that if you’re older than fourteen, you spend your summer vacation trying to get laid. And if you’re lucky, you make it.

“You score,” Ishi said.

“You mean,” I said, “by the time kids Earthside are our age, they’re…”

“Right, they’re men of the world, compared to us.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. Novels and movies are all about that. For Chrissake, it’s a major theme!”

Ishi chuckled, “You’ve got a point.”

“I think I know why, too. I mean, why we’re so stifled up here.”

“That’s easy,” I said. “We’re busy. It’s dangerous out here. Maybe you’ve noticed.”

“That’s a piece of it. yeah.” Zak said. “I did a little researching, though, and turned up a study. Sexual Suppression in Closed Communities, it was called. It turns out that in places like the Israeli kibbutzim, nobody gets laid either, unless they’re married. There’s a thing called ‘outgroup bonding’ that forms. Like an incest taboo, almost. You get to feeling you can’t have sex or romance with a member of the group you grew up with. The pressure is always on you to defend against some threat, so you get in the habit of thinking about girls as if they’re allies. Not, y’know, potential lovers.”

“You think that explains it?” Ishi asked.

“Sure. Hell, the author of the study gave the Can as an example. She said we’ll probably work out the same way as the kibbutzim. I think that’s why the study was done in the first place—to find out what to expect out here.”

“Ummm,” I murmured. “I dunno…”

“Say, Ishi. I just remembered something.”

“Oh?”

“When I mentioned that nobody got laid around here, you kept quiet.”

“So I did.”

“You mean…”

Ishi smiled faintly. “I cannot lie to you. But I will give no details.”

Zak and I glanced at each other. For Chrissakes. Ishi, of all people! He seemed so reserved, so quiet, so—“You never gave any sign,” I said. “Y’know. I used to notice that when Zak here would be swapping dirty jokes with me, you never said anything. I thought you were shy.”

“Maybe he had a more direct approach to the problem.” Zak said.

“Ummm…” I studied Ishi’s mysterious smile. Suddenly I felt like a punk kid. And back Earthside, all of us kids would probably look like social throwbacks. Sex was a big part of growing up and we hadn’t even started on it yet. But Ishi had.

I said. “How’d you find a girl who would… you know…?”

Zak said, “In that magic phrase. Do It?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Ishi pursed his lips. “It is the way you ask the question which tells the true story. Matt.”

“Huh?”

“Here in the Can, we are vary careful to keep orderly behavior. So the society tends to use the social forms that were current when our parents were growing up. There has been a tradition of seeing the relationships of boys and girls as a contest.”

“Yeah,” Zak agreed. “They’re supposed to hold out on you, and you try to talk ’em into it.”

“Come on, it’s not that bad.” I said.

“Oh yeah?” Zak said sarcastically.

Ishi said mildly. “There is some truth in Zak’s words. But as well, our parents wish to protect us. Without thinking of it in so many words, they try to keep us children. It is difficult for them to see us as nearly adults.”

“Yeah, so to keep from dealing with our sex lives, they arrange it so we don’t have any,” Zak said.

“Let us say it is easier for them if they do not have to handle such delicate matters.”

Zak said. “Technical types are kind of shy anyway. They sweep the subject under the rug.”

“We don’t have any rugs in the Can.” I said. “But look, you guys make it sound like some kind of conspiracy.”

“Quite so, it is not,” Ishi murmured. “We are speaking here of an unconscious pattern. There are Marxist economic theories for this separation and anger between the sexes, of course. I have read them. But I do not think they truly explain matters.”