The State of the Art(65)

and the bloodstains on the kerb; and all their signs,

those slogans and lights and pictures, flickering

and bright, entreating and ordering, enticing and

demanding in a grammar of glowing gas and

incandenscing wire.

This was the soul of the machine, the ethological

epicentre, the planetary ground zero of their

commercial energy.I could almost feel it, shivering

down like bomb-blasted rivers of glass from these

undreaming towers of dark and light invading the

snow-dark sky.

Peace in the Middle East? the papers asked.Better

celebrate Bokassa's coronation instead; better

footage.

'You got a terminal?' Linter said.He sounded eager

somehow.

'Of course.'

'Turn it off?' he said.His eyebrows rose.He looked

like a child all of a sudden. 'Please.I don't want the

ship to overhear.'

I wanted to say something to the effect that the ship

could have bugged every individual hair on his

head, but didn't.I turned the terminal brooch to

standby.

'You seen Close Encounters?' Linter said, leaning towards me.We were heading in the direction of

Broadway.

I nodded. 'Ship showed us it being made.We saw

the final print before anybody.'

'Oh yes, of course.' People bumped into us,

swaddled in their heavy clothes, insulated. 'The

ship said you're leaving soon.Are you glad to be

going?'

'Yes, I am.I didn't think I'd be, but I am.And you?

Are you glad to be staying?'

'Pardon?' A police car charged past, then another,

sirens whooping.I repeated what I'd said.Linter

nodded and smiled at me.I thought his breath

smelled. 'Oh yes,' he nodded. 'Of course.'

'I still think you're a fool, you know.You'll be

sorry.'

'Oh no, I don't think so.' He sounded confident, not

looking at me, head held high as we walked down

the street. 'I don't think so at all.I think I'm going to

be very happy here.'

Happy here.In the grand, cold design and the fake

warmth of the neon, while the drunks brown-

bagged and the addicts begged and the deadbeats

searched for warmer gratings and a thicker

cardboard box.It seemed worse here; you saw the

same thing in Paris and London, but it seemed

worse here.Take a step from a shop you had to

have an appointment for, swathed in loot across the

sidewalk to the Roller, Merc or Caddy purring at

the kerb, while some poor fucked-up husk of a

human lay just a spit away, but you'd never notice

them noticing Or maybe I was just too sensitive,

shell-shocked; life really was a struggle on Earth,

and the Culture's 100 percent non-com.A year was

as much as you could have expected any of us to

handle, and I was near the end of my resistance.

'It'll all work out, Sma.I'm very confident.'

Fall in the street here and they just walk around

you

'Yes, yes.I'm sure you're right.'

'Look.' He stopped, turned me by the elbow so that

we stood face to face. 'I'm going to have to tell

you.I know you probably won't like me for it, but

it's important to me.' I watched his eyes, shifting to

look at each of mine in turn.His skin looked more

mottled than I remembered; some pore-deep dirt.

'What?'

'I'm studying.I'm going to enter the Roman Catholic

Church.I've found Jesus, Diziet; I'm saved.Can you

understand that?Are you angry with me?Does it

upset you?'

'No, I'm not angry,' I said flatly. 'That's great,

Dervley.If you're happy, I'm happy for

you.Congratulations.'

'That's great!' He hugged me.I was pressed against

his chest; held; released.We resumed our walk,

walking faster.He seemed pleased. 'Damn, I can't

tell you Dizzy; it's just so good to be here, to be

alive and know there are so many people, so much

happening!I wake up in the morning and I have to

lie for a while just convincing myself I'm really

here and it's all really happening to me; I really

do.I walk down the street and I look at the people;

just look at them!A woman was killed in the place

I stay in last week; can you imagine that?Nobody

heard a thing.I go out and I go on buses and I buy

papers and watch old movies in the

afternoon.Yesterday I watched a man being talked

down from the Queensboro bridge.I think people

were disappointed.D'you know, when he came

down he tried to claim he was a painter?' Linter

shook his head, grinning. 'Hey, I read a terrible

thing yesterday, you know?I read that there are

times when there's a really complicated birth and

the baby's caught inside the mother and probably

already dead, and the doctor has to reach up inside

the woman and take the baby's skull in his hand and

crush it so they can save the mother.Isn't that

terrible?I don't think I could have condoned that

even before I found Jesus.'

'Why couldn't they have done a Caesarean?'

'I don't know.I don't know.I wondered about that

myself.You know I was thinking about coming up

to the ship?' He looked briefly at me, nodded. 'To