“I can inquire, I guess,” Elihu agreed. “What happened to him, by the way?”
“I thought you knew. Oh! If you don’t, maybe I shouldn’t … The hole with that, though. If a U.S. ambassador can’t be trusted, who can?”
“They don’t trust anybody, literally,” Elihu shrugged. “Except computers.”
“I do,” Norman said. He glanced down at his hands and wrung them together absently. “As of a few days ago, and on principle. Don’s gone to Yatakang on State business.”
Elihu mulled that over for a while. He said, “That places him for me. I’d wondered where to pigeon-hole him. You mean he’s one of these standby operatives State keeps on tap as insurance against the eventuation of low-probability trends.”
“I believe that’s correct, yes.”
“And the only thing that’s happened in Yatakang lately is this fantastic genetic programme they’re boosting. Is that connected with his visit?”
“I assume it must be. At any rate, Don took his degree in biology, and his doctorate thesis was on the survival of archetypal genes in living fossils like coelacanths and king crabs and ginkgos.”
“State wants the alleged techniques, presumably.”
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Norman said. “I wonder if we do want them.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s a bit difficult to explain … Look, have you been following television at all since you came home?”
“Occasionally, but since the Yatakang news broke I’ve been much too busy to catch more than an occasional news bulletin.”
“So have I, but—well, I guess I’m more familiar with the way trends get started here nowadays, so I can extrapolate from the couple or three programmes I have had time for.” Norman’s gaze moved over Elihu’s head to the far corner of the room.
“Engrelay Satelserv blankets most of Africa, doesn’t it?”
“The whole continent, I’d say. There are English-speaking people in every country on Earth nowadays, except possibly for China.”
“So you’re acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere?”
“Yes, of course—these two who always appear in station identification slots, doing exotic and romantic things.”
“Did you have a personalised set at any time, with your own identity matted into the Everywhere image?”
“Lord, no! It costs—what? About five thousand bucks, isn’t it?”
“About that. I haven’t got one either; the basic fee is for couple service, and being a bachelor I’ve never bothered. I just have the standard brown-nose identity on my set.” He hesitated. “And—to be absolutely frank—a Scandahoovian one for the shiggy half of the pair. But I’ve watched friends’ sets plenty of times where they had the full service, and I tell you it’s eerie. There’s something absolutely unique and indescribable about seeing your own face and hearing your own voice, matted into the basic signal. There you are wearing clothes you’ve never owned, doing things you’ve never done in places you’ve never been, and it has the immediacy of real life because nowadays television is the real world. You catch? We’re aware of the scale of the planet, so we don’t accept that our own circumscribed horizons constitute reality. Much more real is what’s relayed to us by the TV.”
“I can well understand that,” Elihu nodded. “And of course I’ve seen this on other people’s sets too. Also I agree entirely about what we regard as real. But I thought we were talking about the Yatakangi claim?”
“I still am,” Norman said. “Do you have a homimage attachment on your set? No, obviously not. I do. This does the same thing except with your environment; when they—let’s see … Ah yes! When they put up something like the splitscreen cuts they use to introduce SCANALYZER, one of the cuts is always what they call the ‘digging’ cut, and shows Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere sitting in your home wearing your faces watching the same programme you’re about to watch. You know this one?”
“I don’t think they have this service in Africa yet,” Elihu said. “I know the bit you mean, but it always shows a sort of idealised dream-home full of luxy gadgetry.”
“That used to be what they did here,” Norman said. “Only nowadays practically every American home is full of luxy gadgetry. You know Chad’s definition of the New Poor? People who are too far behind with time-payments on next year’s model to make the down-payment on the one for the year after?”
Elihu chuckled, then grew grave. “That’s too nearly literal to be funny,” he said.
“Prophet’s beard, it certainly is! I found time to look over some of Chad’s books after Guinevere’s party, and … Well, having met him I was inclined to think he was a conceited blowhard, but now I think he’s entitled to every scrap of vanity he likes to put on.”
“I thought of asking State to invite him to come in on this project as a special advisor, but when I broached the matter to Raphael Corning I was told State doesn’t approve of him.”
“Why should they? He’s successfully mocked everything authority stands for.”
“He doesn’t think he’s been successful.”
“He’s certainly coloured public opinion. He may not have changed it radically, but what social theorist since Mao has managed to turn it over? The mere fact that his books are prescribed for college courses means his views are widely disseminated.”
“Yes, but so are Thoreau’s and— Never mind, we’re digressing. You said something about our not wanting the Yatakangi genetic technique and then you started off about Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere.”
“Right. I’ve almost forgotten to make my main point. I’ve watched this happen a couple of times, over eugenic legislation and over the question of partisans. After they’ve been using a personalised TV set for a while, especially if it includes a homimage unit, people begin to lose touch with actuality. For instance, you’re supposed to have a fresh base-recording of your appearance put in about once a year. But I know people who’ve merely had a fresh track made of the first one, for four and even five years successively, so they can go on looking at their younger selves on the screen. They deny the passage of time. They live in an extended instant. Do you see what I’m steering towards?”
“People who can’t even reconcile themselves to growing older won’t submit to someone else’s good fortune when it comes to children?”
“Right. In other words: either our own government, and everyone else’s, has got to match the Yatakangi claim forthwith, or else it’s got to be shown up for an empty boast. The latter possibility would obviously suit State far better, because applying tectogenetic improvements to millions of pregnancies would cause a fantastic social upheaval—even worse than what followed the establishment of the Eugenic Processing Boards. But there’s no middle way. Success in Yatakang, denied to people in other countries, and even success in a limited area of our society denied to people in other groups, will lead to such widespread resentment … Am I stretching my argument too far?”
“I don’t believe you are.” Elihu tried and failed to control a visible shudder. “I haven’t been watching TV, as I told you—but since I’m rooming in the UN Hostel, I’ve been getting first-hand opinions from people of a hundred different nationalities, and take my word, Yatakang is the most cordially hated country on the face of the globe right now, not excluding China.”
“And here’s the crunch,” Norman said, leaning forward to emphasise his words. “There hasn’t been a new crisis since Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere took over. They emerged full-blown into the existing contemporary world, with its generation-long antipathies and hatreds. Even so, I’ve seen what they’ve done to public opinion. Tens—scores—of millions of people are becoming identified with that imaginary couple. The next presidential campaign will pivot on what they think, not on the validity of the rival policies. But the Yatakang question is going to hit first, and what’s worse it’ll hit people in the balls. Below the waist you don’t think, you react. Let Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere only say that this isn’t fair, and you’ll have a party in favour of war against Yatakang within a week.”