The State of the Art(66)

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