Damon Knight - Orbit 19

Cy had been listening with growing interest to the Eisenhower-Glenn holobot, and looked around to see what Vox Intrepid looked like. He was an amphid, with a beak-like olfactory ridge, extremities like bamboo poles, and sensor pods rippling on his trapezius muscles. The linguistic translation was instantaneous: “We on Etherea faced such a distribution problem in the medial portion of our history. With specific regard to food distribution, we used absorption limens of the intestinal tract as basal criteria, body mass as secondary criteria, and gustatory-olfactory sensitivity as a tertiary.” The amphid sat back in his fluid-filled dish.

“Thank you,” the focal holobot said. “I hope you all can see the homology: the primary, or at least one of the prime visceragenic needs of the people, was satisfied immediately. Think of the repercussions: no milk commissions, no cereal empires, no leechblood grocery combines. No food stamps, cattle barons, no United Fruit Company— (“Yay yay yay!” someone shouted)—the entire network of growers, shippers, wholesalers, processors, and so on, obliterated, canceled. Out. Kaput. Zilched. Here on our continent, the governing Synod used a system very similar to the one just described by Mr. Intrepid, only it required the citizens to demonstrate knowledge of the desired foodstuffs; in other words, to show cognizance of the sensual and nutritional value of their choices. You will recall, I believe, the exhilarating impact of this system in its first weeks: the opening of all food stores, immediate liquidation of stock, inventory, and back orders, and the nationalization of the food business. And witness the automation of farming, and the accumulation of great food surpluses. And recall, or be informed, that the Central Food Service used television and social security numbers for coding in the types and amounts of foodstuffs allocated to individual families. I urge you to think through the implications of such innovations in barter-object systemization. In short, it meant that a man need no longer work in order to eat. Any demonstrable hunger, physiologically defined and intellectually understood, would be satisfied gratis; any wish or whim or eccentricity in food choices would be honored, provided you needed body fuel and understood the effects of different types of body fuels. Tell us your experiences in this context, Mr., ah, Franco Spark, of Australia.”

A portly man stood up near Cy. Spark had been a rodeo rider, bareknuckle fistfighter, and sheep rancher. “I did some quick figuring,” Spark said, “and found that my increased buying power amounted to about two hundred dollars per month. I did a crazy thing, but have not regretted it to this day. I traded in three old Cadillacs on a spanking new one, and told the salesman that the only condition of the sale was payments not to exceed two hundred dollars a month.”

“Did you worry about living beyond your means?” the holobot asked. Spark looked incredulous, then relaxed in the knowledge that hyperbole or teleologic jumps must be implicit in such a question.

“Well now,” Spark continued, “my means , if anyone ever uses that word anymore, are altogether different from what they used to be. I know now that because I am physically strong, and motivationally adaptive, that my access parameters to goods and services will stay equivalent to about twenty thousand old world dollars per year. And I didn’t mind my sheep being liberated, as they put it at the time, because the sheep were part of the process of me obtaining food and shelter and transportation. Anyway, to get back to your question, I was very pleased that food was free, and I put my surplus credits into enjoyable transportation.”

“I see that you are currently restricted to internal combustion vehicles.”

“If that is restrictive, then it’s fine with me. I wanted a helicopter the other day, and Air Central let me have one. It was a tiny bubble Sikorsky with a robopilot, but it was adequate, and they let me keep it several hours.”

“Could you requisition a seven ninety-seven or a rocket sled?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“They are vehicles I neither understand nor appreciate.”

“But suppose you were rich, and just wanted one?”

“Accessibility of goods and services has been shown to be quite unrelated to the wealth of the consumer. It would be incongruous for a rich man to have things beyond his understanding, and anyway, the term rich has entirely new connotations now, or it did. Conspicuous consumption is no longer with us—the kick, the fun, of owning trinkets just so they could be displayed for others to covet died out long ago. And I am sure you know all this. Rich Texas oilmen just don’t buy their dogs Cadillacs to chase anymore.”

“What then should be the basis for an organism’s accessibility to societal goods and services?”

“His ability to understand, appreciate, and utilize them.”

“And is such an ability acquired through experience, or is it something fairly invariant, or inborn, or endogenic?” Spark began to look like he would rather have a nap than stand up and talk to the holobot and the audience. “People who have been termed conservative seem to think that you get what you strive for, and people who are called liberal seem to feel you either have it or you don’t. The old United States Republican Party was rather elitist, the old divine right of kings bit, while the Democratic Party felt that effort and persistence and the work ethic developed your tastes. I do not wish to embrace either view, but it is clear to me that there are things to eat and drink, fondle, wear, and ride in, that I don’t care anything about, but which are available, and valued by people of so-called higher societal rank.”

A wall isochronon glowed waxy yellow, and a cheerful trumpet tone sounded. “Our time is up for now,” the Eisenhower-Glenn form said. “In our next session we will talk about alchemy and carbonized gem cloning. Good-bye. Good-bye.”

Cy felt lonely, watching the holobot dematerialize. If I had an F-111 reprod, I’d ram the goddam veil beside the goddam Potomac Trench, and blast off, away from here, he found himself thinking. “Maladaptive ideation,” the provobot’s voice said, loud and clear in the headset. “Sorry,” Cy said, “I was dozing again.” Then the familiar voice of his personal consolbot came through, not as strong as usual:

“Encounter therapy in thirty-seven minutes, Cy. Take the pedwalk to the Supreme Court Monument. An Icarus flitter is berthed in egress niche eighty-seven. Got it? Eighty-seven. The flit is programmed for the hop to the therapist’s home. Beam me in if you have any trouble.”

Cy put the headset in his lap. Wonder if I could go take a thick yellow piss in private, he thought, and a bleep came from the headset. He held it to his ear and heard the provobot: “Lavatory facilities are located off hallway J-two, recycling lab on J-one, urinalysis J-one. Will effect reduced bladder pressure if you desire—”

Cy swiveled the earphones and put them in the rack. I’d like to piss all over your circuitry, he thought, striding away from the softly bleeping headset. He took the steps two at a time, clattered across the slick marble foyer, and stepped out onto the pedwalk. Hey, cool, he thought, the robot shits aren’t going to make me apologize. They must have put the provobots back on their charging pods. “Maladaptive ideation” came the voice from home. “Up yours,” Cy ventured, and heard a sigh.

He sat opposite a panthery-looking black girl in the encounter group circle. Three men and three women were the other members of the group, and the therapist was Dr. Chad Gay, a human, and a former psychoanalyst. Individual consoles were positioned behind each person, and were hooked into the central data banks. The huge amount of data already had the consoles whirring and clacking.