see if anybody else might want to stay.I thought
others might want to follow my example,
especially after I'd talked to them, had a chance to
explain.I thought they might see I was right.'
'Why didn't you?' We stopped at another
intersection.All the people charged around us,
hurrying through the smells of burning petrol and
cooking and rotten food.I smelled gas, and
sometimes steam wrapped itself around us, damp
and fragrant.
'Why didn't I?' Linter mused, watching the DON'T
WALK sign. 'I didn't think it would do any
good.And I was afraid the ship might find a way of
keeping me on board.Do you think I was foolish?'
I looked at him, while the steam curled round us
and the sign changed to WALK, but I didn't say
anything.An old guy came up to us on the far
sidewalk and Linter gave him a quarter.
'But I'll be fine by myself anyway.' We turned
down Broadway, heading towards Madison
Square, past shops and offices, theatres and hotels,
bars and restaurants and apartment blocks.Linter
put his arm round my waist, squeezed me. 'Come
on, Dizzy, you aren't saying much.'
'No, I'm not, am I?'
'I guess you still think I'm being stupid.'
'No more than the locals.'
He smiled. 'They're really good people.What you
don't understand is you have to translate behaviour
as well as language.Once you do realize that you'll
come to love these people the way I do.Sometimes
I think they've come to terms with their technology
better than we have, you know that?'
'No.' No I didn't know that, here in mincerville,
meat-grinder city.Come to terms with it; yeah sure
turn off the aiming computer, Luke; play the five
tones; close your eyes and concentrate together,
that's the way nobody here but us Clears hand me
down that orgone box
'I'm not getting through to you, Dizzy, am I?You're
all closed up, not really here.You're half-way out
the system already, aren't you?'
'I'm just tired,' I told him. 'Keep talking.' I felt like
a helpless, twitching, pink-eyed rat caught in a
maze in some shining alien laboratory; vast and
glittering with some lethal, inhuman purpose.
'They do so well, considering.I know there's a lot
of horrible things going on, but it only seems so
terrible because we pay so much attention to it.The
vast majority of good stuff isn't newsworthy; we
don't notice it.We don't see what a good time most of these people are having.I've met a lot of quite
happy people, you know; I have friends.I met them
through my work.'
'You work?' I was actually interested.
'Ha ha.I thought the ship might not have told you
that.Yes, I've had a job for the last couple of
months; document translator for a big firm of
lawyers.'
'Uh-huh.'
'What was I saying?Oh yeah; lots of people have a
quite acceptable life; they're pretty comfortable in
fact.People can have neat apartments, cars,
holidays and people can have children. That's a
good thing, you know; you see a lot more children
on a planet like this.I like children.Don't you?'
'Yes.I thought everybody did.'
'Ha, well anyway in some ways these people
would consider us backward, you know that?I
know it might sound dumb, but it isn't.Look at
transport; the aircraft I had on my home plate was
on its third or fourth generation, nearly a thousand
years old!These people change their automobiles
every year!They have throw-away containers and
disposable clothes and fashions that mean changing
your clothes every year, every season! -'
'Dervley -'
'Compared to them, the Culture moves at a snail's
pace!'
'Dervley, what was it you wanted to talk about?'
'Huh?Talk about?' Linter looked confused.We
turned left onto Fifth Avenue. 'Oh, nothing in
particular, I guess.I just thought it'd be nice to see
you before you left; wish you bon voyage. I hope
you don't mind.You don't mind, do you?The ship
said you might not want to come, but you don't
mind, do you?'
'No, I don't mind.'
'Good.Good, I didn't think' his voice trailed off.We
walked on in our own silence, in the midst of the
city's continuous coughing and spitting and
wheezing.
I wanted to go.I wanted to get out of this city and
off this continent and up from this planet and onto
the ship and out of this system but something kept
me walking with him, walking and stopping,
stepping down and out, across and up, like another
obedient part of the machine, designed to move, to
function, to keep going regardless, to keep pressing
on and plugging away, warming up or falling down
but always always moving, down to the drug store
or up to company president or just to stay a moving
target, hugging the rails on a course you hardly
needed to see so could stay blinkered on, missing
the fallers and the lame around you and the
trampled ones behind.Perhaps he was right and any