Robert Silverberg - The World Inside

And Michael saying, Ah. Yes. All of us so well adapted. Not believing it was true about all of us.

With some exceptions. Jason’s mild concession.

Michael thinks about that, hanging on the interface. No doubt selective breeding accounts for a lot of it. The universal acceptance of urbmon life. Almost universal. Everybody takes it for granted that this is what life is like, 885,000 people under the same roof, a thousand floors, have lots of littles, cuddle up close. Everybody accepts. With some exceptions. A few of us who look through the windows, out at the naked world, and rage and sweat inside our guts. Wanting to get out there. Are we missing the gene for acceptance?

If Jason is right, if the urbmon population’s been bred to enjoy the life it has to lead, then there must be a few recessives in the stack. Laws of genetics. You can’t eradicate a gene. You just bury it somewhere, but it pops up to haunt you eight generations along the track. Me. In me. I carry the filthy thing. And so I suffer.

Michael decides to confer with his sister about these matters.

He goes to her one morning, 1100 hours, when he’s fairly sure of finding her at home. She is, busy with the littles. His luscious twin, only looking a bit harried just now. Her dark hair askew. Her only garment a dirty towel slung over her shoulder. A smudge on her cheek. Looking around, suspicious, as he enters. “Oh. You.” She smiles at him. How lovely she looks, all lean and flat like that. Stacion’s breasts are full of milk; they swing and joggle, big juicy bags. He prefers supple women. “Just visiting,” he tells Micaela. “Mind if I stay awhile?”

“God bless, whatever you like. Don’t mind me. The littles are running me up the wall.”

“Can I help you?” But she shakes him no. He sits cross-legged, watching her run around the room. Pop this one under the cleanser, that one into the maintenance slot. The others off at school, thank god. Her legs long and lean, her buttocks tight, unpuckered by excess flesh. He is half tempted to top her, right now, only she’s too tense from her morning chores. Somehow he hasn’t ever done it, at least not in years and years. Not since they were children. He put it into her then, sure, everybody topped his sister. Especially that they were twins; it was natural to get together. A very special closeness, like having an extra self, only female. Asking each other things. She touching him, when they were maybe nine. “What does it feel like, having all that growing between your legs? Dangling. Don’t they get in your way when you walk?” And he trying to explain. Later, when she grew her breasts, he asked her the same sort of question. Actually she developed ahead of him. Hair on hers long before he had any on his. And she was bleeding early. That was a kind of gulf between them for a while, she adult, he still a child, and them womb-fellows despite it all. Michael smiles. “If I ask you some things,” he says, “will you promise not to tell anyone? Even Jason?”

“Have I ever been a blabber?”

“All right. Just making sure.”

She finishes with the tittles and sinks down, exhausted, facing him. Lets the towel drape itself on her thighs. Chastely. He wonders what she would think if he asked her to. Oh, yes, she’d do it, she’d have to, but would she want to? Or be uncomfortable about opening it for her brother. She wasn’t, once. But that was long ago.

He says, “Have you ever wanted to leave the urbmon, Micaela?”

“To go to another one, you mean?”

“Just to go out. To the Grand Canyon. The Pyramids. Outside. Do you ever feel restless inside the building?”

Her dark eyes glitter. “God bless, yes! Restless. I never thought much about the Pyramids, but there are days when I feel the walls on me like a bunch of hands. Pressing in.”

“You too, then!”

“What are you talking about, Michael?”

“Jason’s theory. People who’ve been bred generation after generation to tolerate urbmon existence. And I was thinking, some of us aren’t like that. We’re recessives. The wrong genes.”

“Throwbacks.”

“Throwbacks, yes! Like we’re out of place in time. We shouldn’t have been born now. But when people were free to move around. I know I feel that way. Micaela, I want to leave the building. Just roam around outside.”

“You aren’t serious.”

“I think I am. Not that I’ll necessarily do it. But I want to. And that means I’m a, well, a throwback. I don’t fit into Jason’s peaceful population. The way Stacion does. She loves it here. An ideal world. But not me. And if it’s a genetic thing, if I’m really not fit for this civilization, you ought to be the same way. You having all my genes and me all yours. So I thought I’d check. To understand myself better. Finding out how well adjusted you are.”

“I’m not.”

“I knew it!”

“Not that I want to leave the building,” Micaela says. “But other things. Emotional attitudes. Jealousy, ambition. I have a lot of unblessworthy stuff in my head, Michael. So does Jason. We had a fight over it only last week.” She chuckles. ” And we decided that we were throwbacks, the two of us. Like savages out of ancient times. I don’t want to go into all the details, but yes, yes, basically I think you’re right, you and I aren’t really urbmon people inside. It’s just a veneer. We pretend.”

“Exactly! A veneer!” Michael slaps his hands together. “All right. It’s what I wanted to know.”

“You won’t go out of the building, will you?”

“If I do, it’ll just be a short while. To see what it’s like. But forget I said it.” He detects distress in her eyes. Going to her, pulling her up into his arms, he says, “Don’t mess me up, Micaela. If I do it, it’ll be because I have to. You know me. You understand that. So keep quiet until I’m back. If I go.”

He has no doubts at all now, except about some of the peripheral problems, like saying good-bye. Shall he slip out without saying a word to Stacion? He’d better; she’d never understand, and she might cause complications. And Micaela. He is tempted to visit her just before he goes. A special farewell. There’s no one he’s closer to in the entire building, and he might just not return from his outbuilding jaunt. He thinks he’d like to top her, and he suspects she wants him. A loving farewell, just in case. But can he risk it? He mustn’t place too much faith in this genetic thing; if she finds out that he’s actually planning to leave the urbmon, she might just have him picked up and sent to the moral engineers. For his own sake. No doubt she considers his project a flippo idea. Weighing everything, Michael decides not to say anything to her. He will top her in his mind. Her lips to his, her tongue busy, his hands stroking her springy firmness. The thrust. Their bodies moving in perfect coordination. We are only the sundered halves of a single entity, now joined once more. For this brief moment. It becomes so vivid in his imagination that he nearly abandons his resolution. Nearly.

But in the end he goes without telling anyone.

Done rather easily. He knows how to make the great machine serve his needs. On his regular shift that day he stays a little wider awake than usual, dreams a little less. Monitoring his nodes, riding again on all the fugitive impulses floating through the giant building’s mighty ganglia: food requisitions, birth and death statistics, atmospheric reports, a sonic center’s amplification level, the replenishment of groovers in the mechanical dispensers, the urine-recycling figures, communications links, et cetera cetera cetera. And as he makes his adjustments he casually fingers a node and obtains a plug-into the data reservoir. Now he is in direct contact with the central brain, the big machine. It flashes him a string of brassy spurts of golden light: telling him that it is ready to accept repriming. Very well. He instructs it to issue one egress pass for Michael Statler of apartment 70411, obtainable by the said Statler on demand at any terminal and valid until used. Seeing the possibilities for cowardice in that, he amends the order immediately: valid only for twelve hours after issuance. Plus ingress privileges whenever requested. The node flashes him an acceptance symbol. Good. Now he records two messages, noting them down for delivery fifteen hours after the issuance of the egress pass. To Mrs. Micaela Quevedo, apartment 76124. Dear Sister, I did it, wish me luck. I’ll bring you some sand from the seashore. And the other message to Mrs. Stacion Statler, apartment 70411. Explaining briefly where he has gone and why. Telling her he’ll be back soon, not to worry, this is something he has to do. So much for farewells.