Arthur Clarke - Imperial Earth

“After lunch I do a little sightseeing, then get back to the hotel and carry on with the day’s business, until dinnertime. By then, I’m too exhausted to think of anything but bed; the very latest I’ve been awake is twenty-one thirty. It’s going to be quite embarrassing if I don’t adapt soon to the local life style. Already I’ve had to turn down several party invitations because I couldn’t afford to miss the sleep. That sort of thing isn’t easy to explain, and I hope I’ve not offended any of the hostesses this city’s famous for.”

“I have accepted one late engagement, because George stressed its importance. This is to speak—in person, not holovision—to a group called the Daughters of the Revolutions. They’re mostly elderly ladies (“Queen dragons—but dears when you get to know them,” George said) and they’re all over the place this Centennial year. Originally they were only concerned with the American Revolution, but later they became less exclusive. I’m told I’ll meet direct descendants of Lenin and Mao and Balunga. What a pity Washington never had any children... I wonder why.”

“Because I’ve given priority to my official mission—I’m still working on that damn speech—I’ve had almost no time for personal or family business. About the only thing I’ve been able to do in this direction is to contact the bank and establish my credentials, so that I can use Malcolm’s accumulated funds. Even if everything works out according to plan and our estimates are correct, the budget will be tight. My big fear is running out of money and having to go to Finance for more of our precious Terran solars. If that happens, the family will be under attack from all quarters, and it won’t be easy to think of a good defense.”

“This is one reason why I’ve done no shopping—that, and the time factor. I won’t know how much money I’ll have until I’m almost ready to leave! But I have run some of the catalogs through the Comsole, and they’re fascinating. You could spend a lifetime—and a million solars a day—sampling the luxuries of Earth. Every conceivable artifact has its tape stored somewhere, waiting to go into a replicator. Since manufacturing costs are essentially zero, I don’t understand why some of the items are so expensive. The capital costs of the replicators must have been written off decades ago, one would have thought. Despite Colin’s efforts, I don’t really understand Terran economy.”

“But I’m learning many things, fast. For example, there are some smart operators around, on the lookout for innocents from space. Yesterday I was going through a display of Persian carpets—antique, not replicated—wondering if I could possibly afford to take a small one back to Marissa. (I can’t.) This morning there was a message—addressed to me personally, correct room number—from a dealer in Tehran, offering his wares at very special rates. He’s probably quite legitimate, and may have some bargains— but how did he know? I thought Comsole circuits were totally private. But perhaps this doesn’t apply to some commercial services. Anyway, I didn’t answer.”

“Nor have I acknowledged some even more personal messages from various Sex Clubs. They were very explicit, and I’ve stored them as mementos for my old age. After the carpet episode, I was wondering if any would be tailored to my psych profile, which must be on record somewhere—that would have made me mad. But it was very broad-band stuff, and the artwork was beautiful. Perhaps when I’m not so busy...”

Duncan stopped talking; he was not quite sure why—and then he began to laugh at his hesitation. Could it be that, despite fairly heroic efforts, the Makenzies were puritanical after all? For he had just recalled that, only a kilometer or so from this very spot, a President of the United States had got into perfectly terrible trouble with a tape recorder.

But whether it had been a Roosevelt or a Kennedy, he was not quite sure.

George Washington had been right; they did look like dragons. Formidable, tight-lipped ladies, few of them under seventy, and they sported the most astonishing array of hats, in more shapes and sizes than Duncan would have believed possible. On Titan, hats were as rare as wigs, and even less useful. Not that there was any question of utility with most of this headgear; it was obviously designed to impress or intimidate. It certainly intimidated Duncan.

So did the introductions, though he quickly lost track of all the names being thrown at him. Every one of these ladies, it appeared, boasted ancestors who had played some role in the great revolutions that had shaped the modern world. As he shook hands, and listened to the chairperson’s brief comments, he felt that he was being presented with snapshots of history. Most of the audience, of course, traced its involvement back to the birth of United States, and he had heard vaguely of such places as Yorktown and Valley Forge. But he could only smile with feigned comprehension when hearing of revered ancestors who had fought in the hills with Castro, or accompanied Mao on the Long March, or shared the sealed train with Lenin, or fallen in the final assault on Cape Town...

At last all the introductions—including his own—were completed. Feeling none too sure of himself, Duncan perched on the high chair overlooking his expectant audience.

“Perhaps I should apologize,” he began, “for addressing you from a seated position. But as you know, I’ve spent all my life on a world with only a fraction of Earth’s gravity. Believe me, having five times normal weight isn’t exactly enjoyable! How would you like it if you woke up one morning and found your scales registered—oh—three hundred and fifty kilograms?”

There was a moment of shocked surprise as the audience confronted this startling vision, then a titter ran around the room. Fine, Duncan told himself—I’ve broken the ice. Then he realized that there was an undertone of something besides good-natured amusement in the sound, as if his listeners were laughing not with him, but at him.

He glanced frantically around the audience; then, to his horror, saw that there was a perfectly enormous woman halfway back on the far left. She was the fattest person Duncan had ever seen—and the entire audience seemed to be carefully not looking in her direction.

Well, thought Duncan, I’ve got nothing more to lose. It can only go uphill from here. He plunged into his prepared speech.

“This history of my world goes back little more than halfway to the event we are all celebrating next month. The first manned ship touched down on Titan in 2015—but the first permanent base wasn’t established there until considerably later—2046. Even then, it was only a scientific observation post, with the crews rotating back to Earth every few years. There was no thought, in those days, of a self-contained colony that might eventually develop its own culture, just as happened on this continent. In any case, the twenty-first century was too busy dealing with Mars and the Moon to have the energy, or the resources, for activities farther afield.”

Could that have been a yawn he spotted there, near the back of the hall? Surely not so soon! He was being morbidly sensitive; that seat of hats was getting him down. Most of the faces beneath them seemed to be reasonably attentive...

But how to make these sleek and elegant matrons—not one of whom, probably, had ever been farther than the Moon—understand the harsh realities of his distant world? It was a challenge, and that was something no Makenzie could ever resist.

“You may wonder why anyone would want to settle down in a place where the temperature never rises above a hundred below zero, where the atmosphere is poisoned by methane and ammonia, and the sun’s so feeble that you can’t detect its heat when it shines full on your face. Well, I won’t pretend Titan is an attractive tourist resort—though we have some tourists, believe it or not. But it does have certain unique advantages, which is why it’s become important in human affairs.”