Гарри Гаррисон - To The Stars

“Know this man?” he asked, passing over a color photograph. Jan nodded.

“I’ve seen him around, just to say hello to though. Other end of the lab from me. Don’t know his name.

“We do. And we’re keeping an eye on him.”

“Why?”

“He has just been observed using the laboratory computer for access to the commercial channels. He taped a complete performance of Tosca.”

“So he likes opera — is that a crime?”

“No. But illicit recording is.”

“You can’t tell me you’re worried about the few pounds fee coming out of the lab’s pocket, not his?”

“Hardly. But there is a far more serious matter of unauthorized access to classified material. We have traced the signal to one of the computers in this laboratory, but couldn’t pin it down any closer. We have now.

Jan felt suddenly very, very cold. Thurgood-Smythe had his head lowered, his attention on the cigarette case he had taken from his pocket, taking out a cigarette. He would have noticed something if he had been looking.

“We have no real evidence, of course,” he said, closing the case. “But this man is now high on our suspect list and will be watched closely. One slip now and we have him. Thanks.”

He inhaled deeply as Jan held out his glow lighter and lit the cigarette.

The pavement along the Embankment had been swept clear, but there were still white mounds up against the wall and snowy circles around the trees. Floes of ice moved swiftly on the black surface of the Thames. Jan walked through the early evening darkness, from pool of light to pool of light, head down and hands jammed into pockets, unaware of the sharp cold and needing the solitude. Ever since that morning he had looked forward to being alone, to ordering his thoughts, to checking the flow of emotions that possessed him.

Time had passed begrudgingly this day. The research had not gone well because, for the very first time, he could not bury himself in his work. The diagrams did not make sense and he went through them time and time again with the same results. Yet the hours had passed and, to his knowledge, he had done nothing suspicious. Not that he had to worry; suspicion of guilt had already been fixed on the wrong man.

Until he had seen Thurgood-Smythe in the library he had not appreciated the force of the Security procedures. He liked his brother-in-law and helped him when he could, all of the time with the knowledge that his work had something to do with Security, but the reality of what Security did was far removed from normal experience. No more. The first lightning bolt had hit very close to home. Despite the cold bite of the north wind Jan could feel a filming of perspiration on his face. Damn, but Security was good! Too good. He had never expected efficiency of this kind.

It had taken skill and knowledge on his part to get through the blocks that concealed the computer memory he had wanted. But he realized now that these barriers had been there only to prevent accidental and casual access to the information. It would take a determined and resourceful person to get past them — and their only function was to make sure that this was not done easily. Once passed, a greater danger lay in wait. National secrets were meant to be kept secret. The instant he had penetrated to that information the trap had been closed, his signal detected, recorded, traced. All of his elaborate safeguards had been instantly penetrated. The thought was a frightening one. It meant that all of the communication lines in the country, public and private, were being monitored and controlled by the Security forces. Their powers appeared to be limitless. They could hear any conversation, tap any computer memory. Constant monitoring of all phone calls was of course physically impossible. Or was it? Monitoring programs could be written that would listen for certain words and phrases and record anything that contained them. The possible scope of the surveillance was frightening.

Why should they do all this? They had changed history — altered the true story of the world — and could monitor the world’s citizens. Who were they? The overall answer appeared obvious when phrased that way. There were a few people at the top of society and a lot at the bottom. The ones on top wanted to stay there. And he was one of the ones on top so, unknown to him, this was all being done to make sure he kept his status unchanged. So all he had to do to keep his privileged position was absolutely nothing. Forget what he had heard, what he had uncovered, and the world would be the same.

For him. And what about the others? He had never thought about the proles much before this. They were everywhere and nowhere. Always present, always unseen.

He had accepted their role in life as he had always accepted his own; something there and unchanging. What must it be like to be one? What if he were one?

Jan shivered. The cold, it was getting to him. Just the cold. There was the laser hologram sign of an all-night store up ahead and he hurried toward it; the door opened as he approached and admitted him to the welcoming warmth. There were some things he needed for the kitchen. He would buy them now and take his mind away from the morbidity of his thoughts. The next service number was seventeen, and it changed to eighteen when he touched the plate. Milk, he was sure he needed some of that. He typed seventeen on the number pad under the display liter of milk, then one. Butter, yes, he was low on that too.

And oranges, firm and ripe. With the word Jaffa bold on each of them. Flown in fresh from summer to northern winter. He turned quickly away and hurried to the checkout.

“Seventeen,” he said to the girl at the counter and she typed in the number. “Four pounds ten, sir. Do you want them delivered?”

Jan handed over his credit card and nodded. She inserted it into the machine, then returned it to him. His purchases appeared in a basket and she redirected it back inside for delivery.

“Been a cold day,” Jan said. “Quite a wind blowing.”

She opened her mouth slightly, then turned away when she caught his glance. She had heard his accent, seen his clothes; there could be no casual conversation between them. The girl was aware of that even if Jan wasn’t. He pushed out into the night, glad of the cold bite of air on his glowing cheeks.

Back in the apartment he realized that he had no appetite at all. He eyed the whiskey bottle, but that would not be a satisfactory answer. In the end he compromised with a bottle of beer, dialed up a Bach string quartet, and wondered just what the hell he was going to do.

What could he do? Through ignorance and good luck he had missed being caught when he had first tried to gain forbidden information. He couldn’t try that again, not that way. The work camps in Scotland were waiting if you made trouble for the authorities. For all of his life he had looked on the camps as a stern but necessary measure to weed the troublemakers out of a highly organized society. Prole troublemakers of course, the thought of any other kind was unthinkable. Thinkable enough now when he might be one of them. If he did anything at all to draw attention to himself he could be caught. Just like a prole. Perhaps his sector of society was physically better off than theirs — but he was just as much a prisoner of it. What kind of world was he living in? And how did he find out more about it without making that one-way trip to the Highlands?

There was no simple answer to his questions that day or the next, or the next. At the laboratory it was easy enough to get involved in his work, which was still complex and interesting. It was appreciated too.

“I cannot begin to say in words how happy I am with what you have done here,” Sonia Amarigho said. “And in such a short time.”