Brian Aldiss - Enemies of the System

Turning away to place his kit on the shelf, Kordan said, ‘Though I have travelled most of the System, and twice visited the Argyre Ocean since they released the waters, Dunderzee Gorge impresses me. We shall enjoy visiting the reality.’

She was surprised that he spoke so subjectively, and said nothing, standing to watch a pack of man-like creatures which swam strongly in the foam of the lake.

‘Millia, tell me more about yourself,’ Kordan said.

‘You can judge me for yourself.’ She met his eyes. Both were silent, contemplating each other.

‘Where were you born? On Earth?’ he inquired.

‘I was born in a township on the Ust’-Urt Plateau, two hundred and fifty kilometres from the Aral Sea.’ She indicated the falling water, the troubled lake. ‘I never saw anything but flatness until I was twelve years old, so perhaps this great gorge strikes me as against nature. It’s unsophisticated, I can see that.’

‘The day after tomorrow, you and I shall stand beside that waterfall in reality, Millia.’

‘Yes, that should be a worthwhile cultural expedition. Also I wish to become more acquainted with our fellow tourists. They form an interesting cross-section of the middle echelons of our System society. You may escort me down to the bar, if you wish.’

‘Let’s stay alone here together, Millia. I enjoy your company. There will be time for the others tomorrow, inevitably.’

‘Don’t utter anti-social remarks. Unity is a quality which needs perpetual renewal. We had a good time alone on the gulfhopper. Now let’s integrate with our new community.’

He looked back longingly at the waterfall as they left the room.

The Unity Hotel held some two thousand guests, all of them important in their own right, back in the System. Jerezy Kordan was an historian specialising in the Classified period of pre-utopian Europe before the introduction of Biocom. He was a full Academician of the IPUS, the Institute of Pre-Utopian Studies, and likely to rise to Chancellor in time. Millia Sygiek announced herself as a commutation supervisor with System Population Mobility. As such, it was her job to travel the planets and satellites of the System, seeing that communities remained balanced in size and genetic heritage and did not degenerate; the enormous task of controlling migratory circulation fell to her and the SPM bureau.

During the afternoon, freshly arrived tourists were encouraged to walk in the safety of the grounds of the hotel, to accustom themselves to gravity, atmosphere and angstrom differences. There was much to see, including a zoo which housed some of the autochthonous species of Lysenka. Sygiek and Kordan teamed up with another couple of tourists, an exobotanist called Ian Takeido, a quiet young man who had spent most of his life in the Jovian sub-system, and Jaini Regentop, a pallid girl who was a DNA specialist on the Technoeugenics Advisory Council.

The voice of a commentator, deep and paternal, followed them as they walked down one of the broad avenues of the zoo.

‘Most of the trees on either side of you are classified as Lysenkan calamites, or horsetails. Their structure is very similar to that of trees which grew on Earth during the Carboniferous Age. Always remember that Lysenka II is only just emerging from its equivalent of the Devonian Age and entering its own Carboniferous. In other words, it is at the same stage of development as was Earth some 370 million years ago.

‘You will already have noticed the trees we call cage trees. Such phyla never developed on Earth. Each tree is in fact a small colony of trees of up to fifteen in number. Their trunks grow first outwards from a common base, then upwards. Then, as they age, the trunks curl inward again, to meet in a knot of foliage some twelve feet above the ground. So a cage is formed – hence their name.’ The voice deepened into a chuckle. ‘We like to think that this habit of unity makes the cage trees the first example of socialist unity to be found in the vegetable world on Lysenka.’

‘Charming,’ Jaini Regentop said. ‘Charming. Such a constructive little joke, too.’

That evening, the council of the Unity Hotel held a grand reception, with a banquet and many toasts and speeches, followed by dancing and a folk group brought over from Bohemia City on Titan.

Next morning, when the tourists stirred, it was to find that their living walls were blank, and their radio and vision screens not functioning. Only the internal communications of the hotel still operated. An embarrassed management council put out a hasty apology and explained why.

‘The temporary suspension of external communications will in no way affect the expedition to Dunderzee Gorge planned for today. The LDBs, your vehicles, are micro-nuclear-powered. Unfortunately, all our communications are via comsat, while most of the power is beamed from the sun Lysenka to us also by satellite; these functions are in suspension temporarily, owing to a strike at Satellite Control in Peace City. We are happy to say that the hotel has its own power store with plentiful reserves for a week. Meanwhile, we apologise for any inconvenience and the loss of your living walls. As guests will appreciate, Lysenka II is a very primitive planet, which sometimes has its effect on the natures of people. Thank you.’

The guests regarded one another unappreciatively.

‘The powermen and the satellite engineers are trying to renegotiate their contract with the Planetary Praesidium,’ Ian Takeido told Kordan and Sygiek in a low voice, over breakfast. ‘I was talking to one of the hotel’s technicians last night. It seems that because they are working on an extra-solar planet, they have to serve a full ten-year term before returning to the System. They want the term reduced to seven years.’

‘Gulfhopping is considerably expensive, you know,’ Sygiek said mildly.

‘But striking !’ Regentop exclaimed, looking over her coffee cup. ‘How primitive – Ian had to explain the term to me. I thought the penalty for striking was…’ She let her voice tail away.

‘If you want something, then you have to negotiate for it,’ said Kordan. ‘A platitude, but true.’

‘They got tired of negotiating,’ said Takeido. ‘I hope you don’t mind my speaking so freely, but they’ve been negotiating for years, to no effect.’

‘But public life is negotiation, as long as it does not interfere with the march of government,’ said Kordan. ‘The process is part of a general dialectic.’

Takeido shook his head.

‘These technicians see it as an emotional matter. What they are saying is, “Earth is our Id – we must have it or die.” ’

‘ “Id!” Another word I had never heard before,’ complained Regentop, laughing and looking anxiously at their faces.