The State of the Art(64)

caldera to where the ruby-red sun met the

Mediterranean; a livid plasma island sinking in the

wine-dark sea.Cried.



So I wasn't at all pleased when the ship asked me

to hit dirt for one last time.

'But I don't want to.'

'Well, that's all right, if you're quite sure.I'm not

asking you to do it for your own good, I must

admit, but I did promise Linter I'd ask, and he did

seem quite anxious to see you before we left.'

'Oh but why ?What does he want from me?'

'He wouldn't say.I didn't talk to him all that long.I

sent a drone down to tell him we were leaving

soon, and he said he would only talk to you.I told

him I'd ask but I couldn't guarantee anything he was

adamant though; only you.He won't talk to me.Oh

well.Such is life.Not to worry.I'll tell him you

won't -' the small unit started to drift away, but I

pulled it back.

'No; no, stop; I'll go.God dammit, I'll go.Where?

Where does he want to meet?'

'New York City.'

'Oh no,' I groaned.

'Hey, it's an interesting place.You might like it.'

6.2:The Precise Nature Of The Catastrophe

A General Contact Unit is a machine.In Contact

you live inside one, or several, plus a variety of

Systems Vehicles, for most of your average thirty-

year stint.I was just over half way through my spell

and I'd been on three GCUs; the Arbitrary had

been my home for only a year before we found

Earth, but the craft before it had been an

Escarpment class too.So I was used to living in a

device nevertheless; I'd never felt so machine-

trapped, so tangled and caught and snarled up as I

did after an hour in the Big Apple.

I don't know if it was the traffic, the noise, the

crowds, the soaring buildings or the starkly

geometric expanses of streets and avenues (I mean,

I've never even heard of a GSV which laid out its accommodation as regularly as Manhattan), or just

everything together, but whatever it was, I didn't

like it.So; a bitterly cold, windy Saturday night in

the big city on the Eastern seaboard, only a couple

of week's shopping left till Christmas, and me

sitting in a little coffee shop on 42nd Street at

eleven o'clock, waiting for the movies to end.

What was Linter playing at?Going to see Close

Encounters for the seventh time, indeed.I looked at my watch, drank my coffee, paid the check and

left.I tightened the heavy wool coat about me,

pulled on gloves and a hat.I wore needle-cords and

knee-length leather boots.I looked around as I

walked, a chill wind against my face.

What really got to me was the predictability.It was

like a jungle.Oslo a rock garden?Paris a parterre,

with its follies, shady areas and breeze-block

garages inset?London with that vaguely

conservatory air, a badly kept museum haphazardly

modernized?Wien a too severe version of Paris,

high starch collared, and Berlin a long garden

party in the ruins of a baroque sepulchre?Then

New York a rain forest; an infested, towering,

teeming jungle, full of great columns that scratched

at the clouds but which stood with their feet in the

rot, decay and swarming life beneath; steel on

rock, glass blocking the sun; the ship's living

machine incarnate.

I walked through the streets, dazzled and

frightened.The Arbitrary was just a tap on my

terminal away, ready to send help or bounce me up

on an emergency displace, but I still felt scared.I'd

never been in such an intimidating place.I walked

up 42nd Street and carefully crossed Sixth Avenue

to walk along its far side towards the movie

theatre.

People streamed out, talking in twos and groups,

putting up collars, walking off quickly with their

arms round each other to find someplace warm, or

standing looking for a cab.Their breath misted the

air in front of them, and from the lights of the

mothership to the lights of the foyer to the lights of

the snarling traffic they moved.Linter was one of

the last out, looking thinner and paler than he had

in Oslo, but brighter, quicker.He waved and came

over to me.He buttoned up a fawn-coloured coat,

then put his lips to my cheek as he reached for his

gloves.

'Mmm.Hello.You're cold.Eaten yet?I'm

hungry.Want to eat?'

'Hello.I'm not cold.I'm not hungry either, but I'll

come and watch you.How are you?'

'Fine.Fine,' he smiled.

He didn't look fine.He looked better than I

remembered, but in big city terms, he was a bit

scruffy and not very well-fed looking.That fast,

edgy, high-pressure urban life had infected him, I

guess.

He pulled on my arm. 'Come on; let's walk.I want

to talk.'

'All right.' We started along the sidewalk.Bustle-

hustle, all their signs and lights and racket and

smell, the white noise of their existence, a focus of

all the world's business.How could they stand it?

The bag ladies; the obvious loonies, eyes staring;

the grotesquely obese; the cold vomit in the alleys