The people of Earth moved about with courtesy and consideration for others, Saskia noted. Approaching the Lite station, they saw the pedestrians striding past in well-ordered groups, pausing at junctions to allow others to pass, streams of happy people separating into tributaries that flowed this way and that, politely taking it in turns to enter doorways and narrow entrances. They moved with tremendous grace, like people in a dance. But there was something else there, too…. What was the word?
“What do these people make you think of, Miss Rose?” whispered Saskia.
“Robots.”
Robots, no. What was the word? Then Saskia had it: they moved with maximum efficiency. They weren’t like robots because they all looked so happy and healthy.
“No, thank you,” said Saskia. She could smell it through the hood of the active suit: hot and greasy and salty and good. “Suit, cut aromas, please,” she instructed.
Miss Rose was getting tired now. Her bony arm was cutting into Saskia. She could feel the effort the old woman put into making each step, transmitted in the dead weight that settled upon Saskia as she moved. Judy and Constantine were conversing in low tones.
“Oh, I’m tired, dear.”
“Not much farther, Miss Rose.”
“I think I’ll take off the hood of this suit. I can’t breathe properly in here.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“I don’t know why. Everyone here looks so polite. They always were, of course, but this is more so than I remember.”
“When was the last time you were here, Miss Rose?”
“I don’t know. Twenty years ago? Thirty?”
“That’s the Watcher, Miss Rose. Since the first of the Dark Seeds fell to Earth, the Watcher stopped hiding. It openly took control. This is what it has been working towards for so long. This is the Watcher’s Utopia.”
Miss Rose cackled. “It’s a very nice Utopia.”
Saskia laughed, too.
They felt so safe. And that was the problem. Saskia knew she should be frightened, but all she felt was a calm serenity. That was also the Watcher’s doing, she guessed. What worried her was the sense that she was forgetting this last thought as she was slowly being reprogrammed by her environment.
The Lite station stood on stilts right at the center of an intersection of eight bright bridges. Beautiful bridges formed of low graceful arches, white dressed-stone pillars stepping daintily through the snow-covered grass and lakes and canals lying below. White lamps were arranged along the parapet walls.
“You know what it makes me think of?” Miss Rose whispered. “It’s like someone threw a stone and made it skip across the lakes and canals, and the path that it took has been written by the bridge. Look at how it goes: skip into the lake, skip into the street, then skip into the canal.”
“Ah, it’s getting to you!” Vanya said, coming up beside them. “This is the Watcher’s world. We discover new beauty here every day. It is part of the world, written into the very fabric. Come, take off your hood and breathe the air!”
“No, thank you,” Saskia said firmly.
As they rode an escalator up to the Lite station itself, the view of the city expanded: a landscape of snow and ice. The parkland lay behind them in a bowl of buildings that ran to the horizon, the silver spires of city blocks climbing higher and higher the farther they were distant from the center, all cut through by the avenue to the stars, lit up in blue rime. And all around were those happy people who seemed to walk back and forth to the beat of a metronome. There too was the
And over there was another strange squat tower. And another one.
