After Dyeva, Kathmann was next.
That evening Professor Yang again stood before his mashina, which was set to Transmit and Record. A memory cube nestled in the queue. Lights arranged by his servant illuminated Yang against a background of ancient books that had been imprinted on the wall by a digital image-transfer process. (Real books were too expensive for a scholar to afford.) Watching the interest indicator with a sharp eye, Yang launched into the second lecture of his course, Origin of Our World. His subject today was the response to the Troubles: the slow repopulation of the Earth by humans and the reintroduction of hundreds of extinct animal species whose DNA had fortunately been preserved for low-gravity study on Luna.
He spoke of the first halting steps toward Far Space and of the gradual emergence of humanity from the cocoon of the Solar System during three hundred years of experiment and daring colonization. He spoke of the new morality that emerged from the Time of Troubles, the ecolaws that limited the size of families and prescribed a human density of no more than one person per thousand hectares of land surface on any inhabited planet. (Great populations tend to produce political instability, to say nothing of epidemics.) He spoke of the Great Diaspora, the scattering of humankind among the stars to insure that what had almost happened in the past could never happen again. He spoke of a species obsessed with security and order, and pointed out what a good thing it was that people had, for once, learned from the past, so that they would never have to repeat it. He spoke about the liquidation of democracy and explained the strange term as a Greekword meaning “mob rule.” He ended with a kindly word or two about the friendly aliens like the Darksiders who had now become part of humanity’s march toward ever greater heights of stability and glory.
All across the city, students were recording the lecture. So were people who were not students but had a hunger for learning. In his apartment, Stef listened because he was still recovering from his night in the Chamber and had nothing else to do. His chief reaction to Yang’s version of history was sardonic amusement.
“Pompous oldglupetz,” he muttered.
In another shabby apartment, this one opening on a rundown warren of buildings near the university called Jesus and Buddha Court, Kuli-whose real name was Ananda-and the beautiful Dian-whose real name was Iris-also listened to Yang. Their reactions tended less to laughter and more to scorn.
“I liked the bit about the Darksiders,” said Ananda, fingering his rosary. “A bunch of smelly barbarians our lords and masters use as mercenaries to suppress human freedom.”
“You’re so right,” said Iris, shutting off the box. “How I hate that man.”
“Oh well, he’s just a professor,” said Ananda tolerantly. “What can you expect. Look, is there a Crux meeting this week?”
“I don’t know. Lata will have to message us, won’t she? Nobody we know has been arrested. Maybe the excitement’s over,” she added optimistically.
“I thought Zet was getting spooked.”
“Well, he’s old. Old people get scared so easily.”
She smiled and sat down on the arm of his chair. Ananda used his free hand to rub her smooth back. Not for the first time in history, conspiracy had led to romance. The relationship had begun with talk and more talk; change the past, restore life to the victims of the Troubles and at the same time erase this world of cruelty and injustice. Neither Ananda nor Iris could imagine that they might cease to exist if the past were changed; they thought that somehow they would continue just about as they were. Maybe better.
Growing intimate, they had told each other their real names; that had been a crucial step, filled with daring trust and a quiver of fear-somewhat like their first time getting naked together. The fact that Ananda in the past had told other girls his name and had tried to recruit them for Crux was something that Iris didn’t know.
Indeed, Ananda had forgotten the others too, for he was floating in his new love like a fly in honey. In the middle of the disheveled apartment, surrounded by discarded hardcopy, rumpled bedding, a few stray cats for whom Ananda felt a brotherly concern, Iris of haunting beauty bent and touched her lips to those of the ugly young man with the rosary at his belt.
“I’d better go,” she murmured. “I’ve got a lab.” Her tone said to him, Make me stay.
“In a minute,” said Ananda, tightening his grip. “You can go in just a minute.”
A few streets away, in a less shabby student apartment occupied by four young women, the mashina was still playing after Yang’s lecture, only now switched to a commercial program.
One of the women was insisting that she needed to make a call, but the other three were watching a story of sex among the stars calledThe Far Side of the Sky and voted her down.
“You can wait, Taka,” they said firmly. Taka, who was twenty, had begun to argue when a news bulletin suddenly interrupted the transmission.
“Suppose I make my call now-” she started to say, when something about the bulletin caught her attention.
“Hush up,” she told the others, who were bitterly complaining about the interruption of the story just as the hero had embraced the heroine deep in mag space.
“I want to hear this,” said Taka.
After the bulletin the story quickly resumed. Taka thoughtfully retired to her bedroom and sat down on the floor, folded her slim legs gracefully under her, and reached for her compwrite. The compwrite transmitted through the mashina in the other room but gave her privacy to work.
“A letter,” she said, “to-”
Who? She wondered. Daddy had always told her to obey the law but have nothing to do with the polizi, who were, he said, scum,gryaz, filth. How then to get her information to them without using the boxcode that had appeared on the screen during the newsflash? “To Professor Yang, History Faculty,” she began, rattling off the university address code from memory.
“Send this with no return address,oke? ”
“I am waiting, O woman of transcendent beauty,” said the compwrite. Taka herself had taught it to say that and was now trying to make it learn how to giggle.
“Honored Professor, I am sending this to you as a person I honor and trust and admire,” she began, laying it on thick.
“I have always been a law-abiding person and there was a news bulletin just now where the polizi were asking for information about a terrorist group called the Crooks. Well, a student named Ananda, when he was trying to climb aboard-scratch that, make love to me a couple of months ago, stated that he belonged to this group and tried to make it seem incredibly important, though I had never heard of it myself up to that time. In any case my native dialect is English and I happen to know what Crooks means and I was angry that somebody would try to involve me in something criminal.
“Hoping that you will convey this info to the proper authorities, I remain one of your students choosing to remain anonymous.”
She viewed this missive on the screen and then added, “PS, this Ananda is an ugly guy with a rosary of some kind he wears on his belt. I think he’s an O.B. He is skinny and wears a funny kind of cross under his jacket. He says it is a symbol of something I forget what.”
She added, “Send,” and headed back into the front room, where the current chapter ofThe Far Side of the Sky had expired in a shudder of Far Space orgasms.
“Well, I suppose I can make my call now,” she said, and did so, setting up an appointment for tomorrow with the mashina of a depilator who had promised to leave her arms and legs as smooth as babyflesh, which she thought would look very nice.
Professor Yang’s infatuation with Selina was leading him deeper and deeper into debt. He tried to stay away from Radiant Love House, but instead found himself dreaming of the White Tiger all day and heading for the District by hovercab at least three times a week.
He told himself all the usual things-that this was ridiculous in a man his age, that he would lose face if his frequent visits became known, that he couldn’t afford this new extravagance. No argument could sway him; he wanted his woman of ivory in the blue peace of the electronic room where for an hour at least he feasted on the illusion of youth regained.
He was again in the middling expensive parlor waiting for the White Tiger when Stef lounged in and collapsed on the double divan.
Ordinarily, Yang would have ignored the fellow, but when Stef said, “How are you, Honored Professor?” he felt
