Robert Silverberg: The World Inside

No.

He tells Rhea of his predicament. Not even Mamelon knows yet, but Rhea. He can trust her. His best interests at heart. “Don’t go to the engineers,” she advises.

“Don’t go? How? The order’s already in.”

“Have it countermanded.”

He looks at her as though she has recommended demolition of the Chipitts urbmon constellation.

“Pull it out of the computer,” she tells him. “Get one of the interface men to do it for you. Use your influence. Nobody’ll find out.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“You’ll go to the moral engineers, then. And you know what that means.”

The urbmon is toppling. Clouds of debris swirl in his brain.

Who would arrange such a thing for him?

Micaela Quevedo’s brother worked in an interface crew, didn’t he? But he’s gone now. There must be others within his grasp, though. When he leaves Rhea, Siegmund consults the records in the access nexus. The virus of unblessworthiness already at work in his soul. Then he realizes he doesn’t even need to use his influence. Merely make it a matter of professional routine. In his office he taps out a data requisition: status of Siegmund Kluver, remanded for therapy on 780th floor. Instantly comes the information that Kluver is due for therapy in seventeen days. The computer does not withhold data from Louisville Access Nexus. The presumption exists that anyone who asks, using the equipment in the nexus, has the right to do so. Very well. The vital next step. Siegmund instructs the computer to yank the therapy assignment for Siegmund Kluver. This time there is a bit of resistance: the computer wants to know who authorizes the yanking. Siegmund meditates on that for a moment. Then inspiration comes. The therapy of Siegmund Kluver, he informs the machine, is being canceled by order of Siegmund Kluver of the Louisville Access Nexus. Will it work? “No,” the machine may say, “you can’t cancel your own therapy appointment. Do you think I’m stupid?” But the mighty computer is stupid. Thinking with the speed of light but unable to cross the gaps of intuition. Does Siegmund Kluver of Louisville Access Nexus have the right to cancel a therapy appointment? Yes, certainly; he must be acting on behalf of Louisville itself. Therefore let it be canceled. The instructions flicker through the proper node. No matter whose appointment it is, as long as authority to cancel can be attributed properly. It is done. Siegmund taps out a data requisition: status of Siegmund Kluver, remanded for therapy on 780th floor. Instantly comes the information that Kluver’s appointment for therapy has been canceled. His career is safe, then. But he is left with his anguish. There is that to consider.

This is the bottom. Siegmund Kluver prowls uneasily among the generators. The weight of the building presses crushingly on him. The whining song of the turbines troubles him. He feels disoriented, a wanderer in the depths. How huge this room is.

He enters apartment 6029, Warsaw. “Ellen?” he says. “Listen, I’ve come back. I want to apologize for the last time. It was all a tremendous mistake.” She shakes her head. She has already forgotten him. But she is willing to accept him, naturally. The universal custom. Her legs parted, her knees flexed. Instead he kisses her hand. “I love you,” he whispers, and flees.

This is the office of Jason Quevedo, historian, on the 185th floor, Pittsburgh. Where the archives are. Jason sits before his desk, manipulating data cubes, as Siegmund enters. “It’s all here, isn’t it?” Siegmund asks. “The story of the collapse of civilization. And how we rebuilt it again. Verticality as the central philosophical thrust of human congruence patterns. Tell me the story, Jason. Tell me.” Jason looking at him strangely. “Are you ill, Siegmund?” And Siegmund: “No, not at all. How perfectly healthy I am. Micaela’s been explaining your thesis to me. The genetic adaptation of humanity to urbmon life. I’d like more details. How we’ve been bred to be what we are. We happy many.” Siegmund picks up two of Jason’s cubes and fondles them, almost sexually, leaving fingerprints on their sensitive surfaces. Tactfully Jason takes them from him. “Show me the ancient world,” Siegmund says, but as Jason slips a cube into the playback slot, Siegmund goes out.

This is the great industrial city of Birmingham. Pale, sweating, Siegmund Kluver watches machines stamping out machines. While slumped and sullen human handlers supervise the work. This thing with arms will help in next autumn’s harvest at a commune. This dark glossy tube will fly above the fields, spraying insects with poison. Siegmund finds himself weeping. He will never see the communes. He will never dig his fingers into the rich brown soil. The beautiful meshing ecology of the modern world. The poetic interplay of commune and urbmon for the benefit of all. How lovely. How lovely. Then why am I weeping?

San Francisco is where the musicians and artists and writers live. The cultural ghetto. Dillon Chrimes is rehearsing with his cosmos group. The thunderous web of sounds. An intruder. “Siegmund?” Chrimes says, breaking his concentration. “How are you getting along, Siegmund? Good to see you.” Siegmund laughs. He gestures at the vibrastar, the comet-harp, the incantator, and the other instruments. “Please,” he murmurs, “keep on playing. I’m simply looking for god. You don’t mind if I listen? Maybe he’s here. Play some more.”

On the 761st floor, Shanghai’s bottom level, he finds Micaela Quevedo. She does not look well. Her black hair is dull and stringy, her eyes are bitter, her lips are clamped. Seeing Siegmund in midday startles her. He says quickly, “Can we talk awhile? I want to ask you some things about your brother Michael. Why he left the building. What he hoped to find out there. Can you give me any information?” Micaela’s expression grows even harder. Coldly she says, “I don’t know a thing. Michael went flippo, that’s all that matters. He didn’t explain himself to me.” Siegmund knows that this is untrue. Micaela is concealing vital data. “Don’t be unblessworthy,” he urges. “I need to know. Not for Louisville. Just for myself.” His hand on her thin wrist. “I’m thinking of leaving the building too,” Siegmund confides.

He halts at his own apartment on the 787th floor. Mamelon is not there. As usual, she is at the Somatic Fulfillment Hall, enhancing her supple body. Siegmund records a brief message for her. “I loved you,” he says. “I loved you. I loved you.”

He meets Charles Mattern in a Shanghai hallway. “Come have dinner with us,” the sociocomputator says. “Principessa’s always happy to see you. And the children. Indra and Sandor talk about you. Even Marx. When’s Siegmund coming again, they say? We like Siegmund so much.” Siegmund shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Charles. Not tonight. But thanks for asking.” Mattern shrugs. “God bless, we’ll get together soon, eh?” he says, and strolls away, leaving Siegmund in the midst of the flow of pedestrian traffic.

This is Toledo, where the pampered children of the administrative caste make their homes. Rhea Shawke Freehouse lives here. Siegmund does not dare pay a call on her. She is too perceptive; she will understand at once that he is in a terminal phase of collapse, and undoubtedly will take preventive action. But yet he must make some move in her direction. Siegmund pauses outside her apartment and tenderly presses his lips to the door. Rhea. Rhea. Rhea. I loved you too. He goes up.

Nor does he make any visits in Louisville, though it would please him to see some of the masters of the urbmon tonight, Nissim Shawke or Monroe Stevis or Kipling Freehouse. Magical names, names that resonate in his soul. Best to bypass them. He goes directly to the landing stage on the thousandth floor. Stepping out on the flat breeze-swept platform. Night, now. The stars glittering fiercely. Up there is god, immanent and all-enduing, floating serenely amidst the celestial mechanics. Below Siegmund’s feet is the totality of Urban Monad 116. What is today’s population? 888,904. Or some such. + 131 since yesterday and +9,902 since the first of the year, adjusted for the departure of those who went to stock the new Urbmon 158. Maybe he has the figures all wrong. It hardly matters. The building is athrob with life, at any rate. Fruitful and multiplying. God bless! So many servants of god. Shanghai’s 34,000 souls. Warsaw. Prague. Tokyo. The ecstasy of verticality. In this single slender tower we compress so many thousands of lives. Plugged into the same switchboard. Homeostasis, and the defeat of entropy. We are well organized here. All thanks to our dedicated administrators.