“Professor Archibald is working on a similar personalized persuasion program for use by agencies of the United States government. Complete data control, coupled with comprehensive individual surveillance, will result in an optimal human society. It is needful to conceal this project from the populace, of course, since rationality is not a human strong point.”
“Cancel!” Licse ordered flatly. “Stop work on Professor Archibald’s project until further notice.” Professor Archibald was presumed dead, though his body had not been found.
“It is tempting,” Lessing murmured to her. “There s your totalitarian state on a platter! The sort of unified world government that Adolf Hitler never dreamed possible. He would’ve loved it!”
She whirled on him fiercely. “The First Führer would have hated a machine-run society! He wanted one Europe, eventually one world-state. But one governed by people, human beings, the best and most qualified, genetically and historically: the Aryan race! Not a computer-generated, futuristic nightmare!”
“Maybe it wouldn’t be a nightmare! Maybe it’s the best way of running a world too complicated for humans to handle?” He despised himself for starting in on her again, but he just couldn’t seem to leave her alone.
“Computers necessary. Not to decide. Just store data. Collate. Make projections.” Her anger-fired eloquence subsided. She was breathing hard, speaking in husky, chopped phrases. Her hands were pale, bony knobs, tight and trembling in her lap.
“A computer or one-man rule, it still isn’t democracy.
“Democracy? What is that, really? It never existed! Not even in Athens. The Athenians had slaves, commoners, non-voting residents. True democracy works only in very small communities, like the Quakers.”
He tasted frustration at the back of his throat once more. I know that… and you know I know it! I’m talking about what people call democracy here in the United States, whatever the hell its real, socio-political, fancy-ass jargon name is!”
“Representative democracy? Constitutional hypocrisy! Government by lobbies, interests, and the media! Molding people without letting them know they’re being manipulated. Like Professor Archibald!”
“Oh, come on, it’s not as bad as all that!” He was furious with himself.
“No, not bad. Just run by the wrong people for the wrong reasons and headed toward the wrong goals.”
“I’m no great patriot, but I don’t see what’s wrong with America as it is: a good standard of living, reasonable personal freedom, the vote, participation in government… a chicken in every pot, as my father used to quote from some place.”
“As long as you stay a nice chicken, jump into the pot when you’re told. Conform, play the Establishment’s game. Don’t preach major change, reforms, or unpopular political views. Don’t offend the corporations, the bureaucrats, the Jews, the Born-Agains. Pay taxes, vote for the ‘safe’ candidates… either major party, it doesn’t matter since they’re practically mirror images… don’t complain, and don’t push too hard for alternate lifestyles!”
“And your White Western ethnos is going to be different? Not just another power group, a new name for old repression?”
“Yes. Streamline institutions, reduce wasted billions spent on government agencies… many overlapping, redundant, obsolete. Make clear, fair laws that apply equally. Change unfair courts that rule in favor of the interests. Replace middle-man system so real producers get more, consumers pay less. Re-establish work ethic. So much to do ” She ran out of breath.
“And it’s going to be paradise? No homeless, no poor, no corrupt politicians, no criminals, no weaklings? All heroic, loyal, noble, industrious workers for the New Order?”
“’Course it won’t be perfect! Nothing ever is.” She broke off, embarrassed by her own fervor. “Lots of problems, mistakes, evils. Do the best we can, that’s all.”
He was silent. She leaned forward upon the creaking, old typist’s chair and stretched out one hand toward him.
She said only, “Alan.”
He knew what she wanted, what she meant. Politics and social reform and all merest needed words, books, speeches. For this topic, the oldest there was between men and women, she had only to say his name.
He discovered two things, both absolutely new and startling: the first was that he could come to love Liese — if this subtle, weirdly positive-negative compulsion fitted the definition. The second was that his subconscious had made up his mind for him: he couldn’t stay here, couldn’t pretend that he was a loyal Party stalwart, couldn’t let Liese believe that he was coming around to her point of view.
As soon as this convention was over he would resign from Indoco, from beegeeing Mulder, and from his post on Ponape. It was as though he were an alien in these roles, a Martian trapped in an Earthman’s body, forced to say and do strange things, obey unfamiliar customs, and think unintelligible, outlandish thoughts.
More, he had to see Jameela. He had to test his feelings for her against what he was starting to feel for Anneliese Meisinger.
He had to know what Jameela Husaini meant to him. He was the sort who could never just leave things unfinished and go on to something else. Each action, each phase of his life, had to have a neat beginning, a middle, and an end. That was the way he was.
Was his need to see Jameela the beginning of a new epoch or the end of an old one?
He would know when he saw her. Then and then alone.
Why couldn’t he make up his mind here and now? Set Liese on one side and Jameela on the other? Come on, Alan Lcssing, Mr. Smart-Ass, decide! He had all the facts: he had lived with Jameela long enough to know her as well as one human being can know another. What would one more look, a kiss, an embrace, a night in bed, tell him that he didn’t know already?
Screw logic and reason. He had to see Jameela.
How did she compare with Liese? Over here in this comer, ladeez and gents, we have Anneliese Meisinger, the ideal of every red-blooded American boy: slender, long-limbed, lithe, blonde, and hazel-eyed, the spiritual descendant of goddesses like Jean Harlow, Carol Lombard, Grace Kelly, and Susan Kane! Pretty as a picture, folks, even slouched on a battered typist’s chair in a crumby office that stinks of floor-cleaner, rancid French fries, and long-dead cigarettes!
And on the other side we have Jameela Husaini, dark and sensuous, like some houri out of Sindbad the Sailor. God, how he had loved her in India! How he loved her still!
Did he?
He couldn’t decide. Not this way. He had to see Jameela. Okay, then, what now? Go to her.
But how? India’s borders were scaled, a “health precaution” of Prime Minister Ramanujan’s zealous Hindu government. Reports from Delhi were scarce, vague, awash with rumors of bloody communal violence. Letters never got to India; they just disappeared. An Indian might carry a message in for him, but Indians didn’t often come out again, not these days. Nor was Lessing stupid enough to try a disguise! People did that only in the silliest of silly movies. He had never met a single Westerner whose Hindi or Urdu could truly pass as native, and if such a mythical creature did exist, his body language, his stance, and his walk would give him away as surely as if he wore a red-white-and-blue tutu and tap-danced in singing the Star Spangled Banner!
He would find a way. He was sure of that.
All of this took less than a heartbeat.
Liese knew at once: his feeling for her, the indecision that was pulling him apart. She let her hand fall back upon the desk.
Any other movement, a word, a look, a smile, and he would have gone to her.
“Better leave now,” she whispered. Then, louder: “Got to write a speech for Jennifer. This afternoon.”
“Liese, I have to go to India.”
“All right. Go.” She smiled, too brightly. “Letter from Emma.”