Larry Niven - Fate of Worlds - Return From the Ringworld

Nessus turned toward the sudden loud voices. Eight Citizens in sturdy coveralls sat at an adjacent table. Of the four facing Nessus, three wore the logo of this arcology. Maintenance workers, perhaps. The fourth, his coveralls emblazoned with the emblem of the local power-generation company, was watching Nessus.

“I am expecting someone,” Nessus lied.

“You are welcome to wait with us.”

“If he does not come soon, I will join you,” Nessus lied again.

The news broadcast continued. “… Minister Achilles gave assurances today that — ”

A susurrus of disdain answered the broadcast. One of the laborers whistled sharply, looking himself in the eyes. “He can’t assure me of anything.”

The reaction showed Nessus his efforts were accomplishing something. But the one he needed to influence was Achilles.…

Nessus slipped a head into a pocket, pretending to answer a call. “I misunderstood,” he called to the workers who had invited him to join them. “My friend and I were supposed to meet in another dining hall.”

“Have a safe day,” the power worker answered.

“You, too.” Nessus stood. He carried his juice glass to the drop-off station and flicked from a nearby stepping disc to the arcology lobby. As he pushed through the weather force field onto a crowded pedestrian mall, herd pheromones embraced him like a warm bath.

In the anonymity of the milling throng, he set a rigged pocket computer onto the dirt and mulch of a decorative planter. Well after he had moved on, the computer would upload its content into Herd Net.

Mid-concourse he came upon an array of express stepping discs, preprogrammed — and so, untraceable to anyone — like the dining-hall-to-lobby exit had been. Choosing a disc at random, he flicked through to another pedestrian mall.

Arcologies soaring to a thousand times his height delimited this public space, too. Lighting panels on all but one of the building walls cast a warm yellow-orange glow over the plaza; the remaining wall showed the Hindmost. The familiar voices boomed over a public address system.

Wishing Horatius well but ignoring the news summary, Nessus pressed forward to another set of preprogrammed stepping discs. He had many more rigged computers to scatter that day.

ALERT TONES JARRED NESSUS AWAKE. He grabbed his pocket computer off the floor to suppress the wake-up alarm.

He rolled, bleary-eyed, from the skimpy nest of cheap pillows that was the room’s main furnishing. Displays all around him tried and failed to convince him that he was in a public park. The walls crowded too close to sustain the illusion. The floor covering was a shiny, inexpensive, synthetic turf.

He missed his garden. More, he missed Janus’ uneventful life. But every moment spent goading Achilles could be gaining vital time for Baedeker.

The unanswered, perhaps unanswerable question: did he distract Achilles enough ?

Only a stepping-disc address distinguished this cubicle from millions like it within this arcology alone. Did this room he had rented — with one of his many false identities — sit high in the building or near the surface or even deep underground? Was he in the bowels of the structure or near an exterior wall? The fifteen-digit disc address told him nothing about its physical location. The unit had neither door nor windows.

He had a sudden mental image of those millions of sleeping quarters. Some residents would live alone, like him, but many rooms like this would be home to two or more. Millions upon millions, then, sealed in little boxes …

“Stacked like cordwood,” Sigmund had once termed the way Citizens lived. Then he had had to explain cordwood, because Citizens had shunned open flame since technology yielded safer methods for generating light and heat — and, before the Great Cleansing, for keeping predators at bay.

Nessus relieved himself over a hygiene disc, imprinted with filters that passed only urine and excrement. He raised the transfer rate of the ceiling-mounted air-exchange disc and lowered the temperature. Setting one wall to reflective mode, he brushed his hide, straightened his braids, and confirmed that his contact lenses remained in place. He slipped on coveralls and checked his pockets: the next provocation he had planned required the special computer from Clandestine Directorate.

With an effort of will he stilled the hoof that, without any hope for progress, had begun to scrape at the tough artificial turf.

He flicked from his room to the dining hall assigned to him when he rented his cubicle. He had no idea where in the physical structure this was, either. Diners sat flank pressed against flank; he crossed three rows to the first empty spot on one of the long benches. His weight triggered a tabletop disc to deliver a serving of this morning’s meal.

Somewhere, a synthesizer considered the mush on his plate to be chopped mixed grains. He forced down a few mouthfuls. Grown food was a luxury, and he was less obtrusive appearing unaccustomed to luxuries.

Hearth was rich in many things, but jobs were not among them because so few jobs were needed. Synthesizers and recycling provided most necessities. Buildings stood almost forever, and except for a few parks, no land remained on which to construct more. Herd Net connected everyone to everyone. The stepping-disc system connected everyone to almost anywhere — but almost anywhere you went on Hearth was no different from the place you had just left.

The basics of life were free — but what then? Once online entertainment palled and hobbies grew stale, if you did not care about politics … what was left to occupy one’s day?

For most of his life Nessus had pitied himself for the insanity by which he could leave home and herd. How foolish! To scout gave his life purpose. The maintenance workers he had met recently — they were among Hearth’s fortunate few.

“Are you working today?” the resident to Nessus’ left asked.

Because of Nessus’ coveralls, of course. Except for menial jobs, no one wore more than a sash or belt for pockets.

“Maybe,” Nessus sang. “I have been waiting at a grain terminal for several days. My place is near the front of the line.”

“Good luck,” the friendly resident sang.

“Thank you.”

Bodily waste and food scraps streamed endlessly from arcologies to central reservoirs. Most such material went on to restock synthesizers. A small fraction of the waste — but in absolute terms, still prodigious quantities — flicked to the empty cargo holds of grain ships, returning as fertilizer to the Nature Preserve worlds. Everything moved through the disc system, with molecular filters sorting materials.

Robots could have cleaned the inevitable splatters and hoof tracks from the unending streams of teleported manure and garbage. On other worlds, perhaps robots would. On human worlds, certainly they would. On Hearth, home to countless bored and idle mouths — no. Citizens never automated a service anyone might choose, even from idle desperation, to do.

What would Sigmund think of manure-spatter cleaning as good fortune? Of tall fences needed to control the multitude of volunteers? Or that, just maybe, the safety of a trillion Citizens now depended upon such things?

Nessus joined several coverall-clad neighbors flicking to a grain terminal. He assumed his place in line.

Behind a Citizen-tall transparent fence, grain ships loomed. Each ship was a sphere smaller than an arcology, but taller than anything else on the planet. The odor of manure hung over the area.

As he watched, coverall-clad workers walked down a ramp from a nearby ship. Most loitered; a few split away. Even before the departing Citizens reached the boundary fence, the grain ship lifted off the tarmac. Like all traffic from this terminal, the ship was bound to Nature Preserve One. Another enormous sphere appeared from overheads to settle into the empty spot.