work it out. “Take an example. This might sound picayune, but it’s just one thing out of scores. Throwing away clothes, each night, after just one day of wear. I know, you explained that less labor is involved in the long run than if you laundered them or dry cleaned them. But I was born in a working class family and often we were up against it. It’s just completely against the grain, throwing away perfectly good clothing. I know, I know, it’s recycled; but I know it intellectually but reject it inwardly.”
“What else?” she said and there was mystification in her voice.
“Oh, possibly stupid little things. For instance, the other night you dialed a dish at dinner that would have cost a good many dollars in my time. You took one look at it and changed your mind, and dumped it, and ordered something else. When I was a kid we were taught to eat everything on our plate. Hell, we didn’t have to be taught; we either did or we went hungry.”
“What else?” she said.
He drug air into his lungs. “Nobody works. I believe that everybody should work. Everybody should do something… besides playing with a piece of jade, like Jo does, or the equivalent.”
She said, a bit of indignation in her voice, “As you know, I have similar beliefs to your own on that score, and so do father and Jo.”
“Yes, but you and your father and Jo are a rather small minority,” he said unhappily. “But to go on. Your sexual mores upset me as much as that man from 1855 would be upset in 1955. I just can’t accept your complete permissiveness, your rejection of what we used to call love, the disappearance of marriage, your acceptance of group sex. The other day you told me that Jo was perfectly normal, he liked girls and men both, or group sex for that matter. Well, for me that isn’t exactly normal, and inwardly I revolt against it.”
“And what else?”
He tried to think of some of the other things, and said finally, “I don’t want to seem like a prude but your attitude toward narcotics is unacceptable to me. Above all is this new code that anything is premissable between consenting adults, even things like sadism, up to and including gladiator fights. I just can’t get the feeling of allowing anything to go, anything at all. Bull fighting, pit dog fights, bear baiting, cock fights. In my day, such things weren’t allowed. And, as far as I’m concerned, they still shouldn’t be allowed. I was of the opinion that man had arisen above such things.”
“You don’t have to attend them,” she said reasonably. “And you don’t have to take narcotics or have group sex. All these things are left up to the individual. Why should you care what the next person does?”
“I know, I know,” he said. “I didn’t expect it to make sense to you, any more than that guy from before the Civil War would have made sense to me. But that’s not all. Perhaps the big thing I miss is the companionship of my own day. You see, I spent most of my life in the company of such men as Dan Whiteley. We were caught up in the movement, the ideal of building a better world. We sacrificed. Sometimes we all but starved together. Sometimes some of those closest friends died for the cause. In my time, I have been there when one or the other of them were cut down… sometimes when attempting to protect my life.”
Betty said softly, “I’m sorry, Tracy, darling. What you say doesn’t make too much sense to me, but I can see you are unhappy in this world of ours.”
“It’s not your fault,” Tracy said. “It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just that I’m a fish out of water. There is no reality for me in this world. You’ve all been kind to me… especially you, Betty.”
After a time she said, “Tracy, do you love me? I mean in the old sense of the word. What you meant in your day.”
He said, “Yes, I love you, Betty.”
She said softly, “Nobody ever said that to me before.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was a few days later, when Tracy had left his desk for lunch, that he brought up the question of space. Only Jo Edmonds was in the dining room; both Betty and her father had gone into town on some errand or other. If you could call it going into town. It was one of the things most difficult for Tracy to accept in this age. There were no stores, no restaurants, in view of the fact that you could order any prepared food you wished in the privacy of your own home, no governmental buildings, no gasoline stations. What was left of the old town of Tangier spread all up and down the coast and consisted of widely spaced villas strategically located to take full advantage of the marvelous view out over the straits.
Jo said, in the way of greeting, “How go the studies?”
Tracy went over to the autobar and dialed himself an aperitif before sitting down.
“I’ve gotten to the space program,” he said. “It’s rather interesting. I understand that now it’s almost completely abandoned. What would you say was the climax of the whole project?”
Jo had been dialing his lunch. He considered the question. “I should think the Russians landing four men on Mars, some decades ago.”
“I haven’t gotten to that, as yet,” Tracy said. “What did they find?”
“More or less what everybody expected them to find, I should think. Nothing. Oh, they picked up material of interest to the scientist blokes, I suppose, but there wasn’t anything really startling. It rather gave the kiss of death to the space program. Practically everybody lost whatever interest remained.”
Tracy dialed his own meal, including a half bottle of claret. One thing he had to concede to this age. It was impossible to get a second-rate drink, or a less than superlative dish. They simply didn’t make them.
He said, “One of you mentioned, the other day, a manned Jupiter probe.”
“That’s right,” the other said. “It was going to have to be a one-man affair, in view of the limited space available for fuel, food and air on such a long jaunt.”
Tracy said, “But after they built the ship, nobody would go?”
“That’s right,” Jo laughed. “I don’t blame them. I sure as hell wouldn’t.”
“Why not just send an unmanned, automatic ship?”
“Oh, they had already done that,” Edmonds said. “But there are limits to what an unmanned spaceship can do, don’t you know? Particularly at that distance. There was some discussion at the time of the possibility that some of the larger satellites of Jupiter, Ganymede, in particular, might be able to sustain life. It’s got a diameter of some 3,000 miles, which makes it half again as large as our Luna. The scientists seem to think that none of the other planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and so forth could support life, but Ganymede just might.”
“Interesting,” Tracy said.
“I suppose so. I went through a period as a youngster when I was all gung-ho about space. But there’s little to do about it now.”
Their food had come and they were both eating.
Tracy said curiously, “What ever happened to the spaceship they built for the Jupiter trip.”
The other frowned. “It seems to me they put it in mothballs. Isn’t that the term you used to use?”
“Yes. You mean it’s still there?”
“I suppose so,” Jo said. “It was about twenty years ago when they wrapped the space program up. Oh, they still have the artificial communications satellites and the observatories on the moon, also automated; but there’s no more original research going on, at least so far as I know.”
Tracy nodded. “More of the indications that the race is turning to mush, eh?”
“I suppose so.”
Tracy asked, “Where’s the nearest Dream Palace, Jo?”
The other was surprised at the question. “Why, right here in Tangier.”
“Where?”
Jo looked at him, frowning slightly. “It’s located in the former palace of the sultans on the Kasbah. It’s one of the few buildings that’s come down from the old days. In a minor sort of way, the Kasbah is now a Pleasure Center. Most people go over to Gibraltar, up to Torremolinos, or down to Rabat for their, ah, sinning. But the Kasbah has a few places, including a very popular duo of nightclubs for homosexuals. One for men, one for lesbians. Rooms on the second floor, of course.”
Tracy said, “I think I’ll go on over. Will you check me out again on how to get a programmed dream?” Jo was
