Ursula Le Guin - The Dispossessed

He woke after long, deep sleep, and since he was facing the clock, studied it sleepily. Its pointer stood at a little after 15, which, if the dial was read from midnight like the 24-hour Anarresti clock, should mean that it was midafternoon. But how could it be midafternoon in space between two worlds? Well, the ship would keep its own time, after all. Figuring all this out heartened him immensely. He sat up and did not feel giddy. He got out of bed and tested his balance: satisfactory, though he felt that the soles of his feet were not quite firmly in contact with the floor. The ship’s gravity field must be rather weak. He did not much like the feeling; what he needed was steadiness, solidity, firm fact. In search of these he began methodically to investigate the little room.

The blank walls were full of surprises, all ready to reveal themselves at a touch on the panel: washstand, shit-stool, mirror, desk, chair, closet, shelves. There were several completely mysterious electrical devices connected with the washstand, and the water valve did not cut off when you released the faucet but kept pouring out until shut off — a sign, Shevek thought, either of great faith in human nature, or of great quantities of hot water. Assuming the latter, he washed all over, and finding no towel, dried himself with one of the mysterious devices, which emitted a pleasant tickling blast of warm air. Not finding his own clothes, he put back on those he had found himself wearing when he woke up: loose tied trousers and a shapeless tunic, both bright yellow with small blue spots. He looked at himself in the mirror. He thought the effect unfortunate. Was this how they dressed on Urras? He searched in vain for a comb, made do by braiding back his hair, and so groomed made to leave the room.

He could not. The door was locked.

Shevek’s first incredulity turned to rage, a kind of rage, a blind will to violence, which he had never felt before in his life. He wrenched at the immovable door handle, slammed his hands against the slick metal of the door, then turned and jabbed the call button, which the doctor had told him to use at need. Nothing happened. There were a lot of other little numbered buttons of different colors on the intercom panel; he hit his hand across the whole lot of them. The wall speaker began to babble, “Who the hell yes coming right away out clear what from twenty-two—”

Shevek drowned them all out: “Unlock the door!”

The door slid open, the doctor looked in. At the sight of his bald, anxious, yellowish face Shevek’s wrath cooled and retreated into an inward darkness. He said, “The door was locked.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Shevek — a precaution — contagion — keeping the others out—”

’To lock out, to lock in, the same act,” Shevek said, looking down at the doctor with light, remote eyes.

“Safety—”

“Safety? Must I be kept in a box?”

“The officers’ lounge,” the doctor offered hurriedly, appeasingly. “Are you hungry, sir? Perhaps you’d like to get dressed and we’ll go to the lounge.”

Shevek looked at the doctor’s clothing: tight blue trousers tucked into boots that looked as smooth and fine as cloth themselves; a violet tunic open down the front and reclosed with silver frogs; and under that, showing only at neck and wrists, a knit shirt of dazzling white.

“I am not dressed?” Shevek inquired at last.

“Oh, pajamas will do, by all means. No formalities on a freighter!”

“Pajamas?”

“What you’re wearing. Sleeping clothes.”

“Clothes to wear while sleeping?”

“Yes.”

Shevek blinked. He made no comment He asked, “Where are the clothes I wore?”

“Your clothes? I had them cleaned — sterilization. I hope you don’t mind, sir—” He investigated a wall panel Shevek had not discovered and brought out a packet wrapped in pale-green paper. He unwrapped Shevek’s old suit, which looked very clean and somewhat reduced in size, wadded up the green paper, activated another panel, tossed the paper into the bin that opened, and smiled uncertainly. “There you are, Dr. Shevek.”

“What happens to the paper?”

“The paper?”

“The green paper.”

“Oh, I put it in the trash.”

“Trash?”

“Disposal. It gets burned up.”

“You burn paper?”

“Perhaps it just gets dropped out into space, I don’t know. I’m no space medic, Dr. Shevek. I was given the honor of attending you because of my experience with other visitors from offworld, the ambassadors from Terra and from Hain. I run the decontamination and habituation procedure for all aliens arriving in A-Io. Not that you’re exactly an alien in the same sense, of course.” He looked timidly at Shevek, who could not follow all he said, but did discern the anxious, diffident, well-meaning nature beneath the words.

“No,” Shevek assured him, “maybe I have the same grandmother as you, two hundred years ago, on Urras.” He was putting on his old clothes, and as he pulled the shirt over his head he saw the doctor stuff the blue and yellow “sleeping clothes” into the “trash” bin. Shevek paused, the collar still over his nose. He emerged fully, knelt, and opened the bin. It was empty.

“The clothes are burned?”

“Oh, those are cheap pajamas, service issue — wear ’em and throw ’em away, it costs less than cleaning.”

“It costs less,” Shevek repeated meditatively. He said the words the way a paleontologist looks at a fossil, the fossil that dates a whole stratum.

“I’m afraid your luggage must have got lost in that final rush for the ship. I hope there was nothing important in it.”

“I brought nothing,” Shevek said. Though his suit had been bleached almost to white and had shrunk a bit, it still fit, and the harsh familiar touch of holum-fiber cloth was pleasant. He felt like himself again. He sat down on the bed facing the doctor and said, “You see, I know you don’t take things, as we do. In your world, in Urras, one must buy things. I come to your world, I have no money, I cannot buy, therefore I should bring. But how much can I bring? Clothing, yes, I might bring two suits. But food? How can I bring food enough? I cannot bring, I cannot buy. If I am to be kept alive, you must give it to me. I am an Anarresti, I make the Urrasti behave like Anarresti: to give, not to sell. If you like. Of course, it is not necessary to keep me alive! I am the Beggarman, you see.”

“Oh, not at all, sir, no, no. You’re a very honored guest. Please don’t judge us by the crew of this ship, they’re very ignorant, limited men — you have no idea of the welcome you’ll get on Urras. After all you’re a world-famous — a galactically famous scientist! And our first visitor from Anarres! I assure you, things will be very different when we come into Peier Field.”

“I do not doubt they will be different,” Shevek said.

The Moon Run normally took four and a half days each way, but this time five days of habituation time for the passenger were added to the return trip. Shevek and Dr. Kimoe spent them in vaccinations and conversations. The captain of the Mindful spent them in maintaining orbit around Urras, and swearing. When he had to speak to Shevek, he did so with uneasy disrespect. The doctor, who was ready to explain everything, had his analysis ready: “He’s used to looking on all foreigners as inferior, as less than fully human.”

“The creation of pseudo-species, Odo called it. Yes. I thought that perhaps on Urras people no longer thought that way, since you have there so many languages and nations, and even visitors from other solar systems.”

“Very few of those, since interstellar travel is so costly and so slow. Perhaps it won’t always be so,” Dr. Kimoe added, evidently with an intent to flatter Shevek or to draw him out; which Shevek ignored.