Equality: In the Year 2000

Chapter Fifteen The Year 2, New Calendar

Julian returned to his own quarters. Since he had been revived, such a short time ago things had been piling up. And now some of them were coming to a head. He was being faced with various decisions, and was inadequately prepared to make them. The situation irritated him.

He paused before the door to his apartment, then turned and went down to that of the Leetes. As always, since his face was programmed into the identity screen, the door opened at his approach.

He entered the living room to find only Dr. Leete, who had a battered-looking book in his hand and an old-fashioned pencil. He was marking a passage.

“Good morning,” he said. “Edith and Martha are both out. I called you an hour or so ago, and you seemed to have left too.”

Julian nodded. “Have you made any progress with that suggestion of mine yesterday?”

Leete chuckled with self-approval and reached into an inner pocket to emerge with a device that looked like an old fountain pen.

“Yes, and—”

Julian put his finger to his lips in the age-old gesture for silence, and motioned with his thumb to one of the bathrooms.

The other blinked, but held his peace and followed.

Inside, Julian closed the door and once again turned on the running water.

He whispered, “It certainly didn’t take you long.”

Leete beamed. “I ran into a bit of luck. I have a friend who putters around with electronics, physicist chap now retired, but he himself was hesitant. He had no doubt that he could eventually come up with what you wished, but had never done anything along those lines before, and he would have had to start from scratch. However, by sheer chance he has a fellow electronics buff who is fascinated by the subject of bugging and detecting bugs as it applied in your day. My friend introduced me, and Dr. Browning was absolutely delighted to find someone who would even listen to details of his various projects. He had a score and more of some of the most complicated gadgets you ever saw. Did you know that it is possible to pick up from half a mile away the conversation of someone driving along in a vehicle?”

Julian raised a hand to cut him off. “Yes, I’ve heard about it. But I don’t believe we’ll be dealing with anything that sophisticated. What’s that he gave you?”

“He said that it was possibly the most universal, uh, mop he had on hand. But he said that if it didn’t work to come back and—”

“Did you tell him what you wanted it for?”

The doctor looked at him blankly. “I don’t know what we want it for.”

“Did he show you how to operate it?”

“Oh, it’s simplicity itself. He demonstrated it in his workshop. Those little bugs of his are simply fascinating. He had my friend and me hide several of them about the shop while he was out of the room and then—”

“But how do you operate it?”

“You simply press this button on the end and direct the other end at any place you think a bug might be. If there is one, it buzzes.”

“All right. Now keep mum.”

Julian turned off the water and led the way back to the living room, followed by his mystified host. Leete sat down and stared after him as he toured the room, pointing the electronic mop here, there, everywhere. Finally, he approached a painting, an abstract beloved by Edith but which he thought a horror.

A faint buzz emanated from the penlike device he held in his hand.

Academician Raymond Leete’s eyes grew huge.

Julian came closer. The buzz intensified. He deactivated the mop and stuck it in the breast pocket of his jerkin, and reached up and removed the painting from the wall. Silently, he pointed at the circular little device stuck there. It was colored the same as the wall itself and was not easy to detect.

Then Julian put the painting back in place and resumed his search of the room.

He said conversationally, “You know, when we were talking about the socioeconomic changes I was continually surprised at how quickly it all got rolling, once it started moving at all, and how far it went. I would have thought it would take at least a century to have evolved to this point.”

He continued to search the walls, but without further luck.

Leete was far from stupid, and he followed Julian’s lead.

“It’s in the nature of such movements to get out of hand, Jule; to move faster than the ‘leaders’ expected. Take the French Revolution, or the American Revolution of 1776, for that matter. Or the Russian Mensheviks, who started the revolt against the Czar expecting to set up a Western-style parliamentary government, but soon had matters taken out of their hands by the rampaging Bolsheviks. So it was in this country too. When the Second Constitutional Convention met, even those most active in the beginning had no idea how far it would go. Many who started as leaders dropped out hopelessly conservative before it was through.”

There seemed to have been only the one bug in the living room. Julian gestured for the other to follow him and went into the kitchen, complete with its little breakfast nook where the Leetes usually ate. The bug was more easily detected here. It was under the table, once again neatly camouflaged.

Julian kept up a running chatter as they went from room to room.

He said, “Something Edith said the other day has come back to me. She spoke of the Soviet system as being state-capitalism; they called it communism.”

Leete went along with him, his eyes still wide in disbelief. “Remember the old story of Lincoln? He said to a visiting delegation, ‘If you called a sheep’s tail a leg, how many legs would the sheep have?’ And someone answered, ‘Five’. And Lincoln said, ‘No, the sheep would have four legs. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.’ ”

Julian laughed. “So?”

“So when the bureaucracy running the Soviet complex called itself communist, or socialist, it wasn’t necessarily either system. In your day, the Soviet Union paid lip service to socialism but exploited wage labor, had money, banks, and most of the other symptoms of a capitalist society. The only difference was that the production and distribution system was not owned by individual capitalists; they were owned by the State. And the State was owned by the Communist Party, the leaders of which, at least, led the same good life as did the capitalists in the West. To a lesser extent the same thing applied to, say, Sweden and Great Britain, both of whom paid lip service to socialism—one of the most elastic terms ever to come into the socioeconomic lexicon. As capitalism develops, it becomes less and less practical for some basic industries to remain in private hands, and less profitable. For instance, take the post office. In the early days in America, it was in the hands of private enterprise—even up until the days of Wells Fargo and the Pony Express. But an industrialized, modern society must have an efficient, integrated postal system. A businessman in early New York who wanted to get an important letter to San Francisco had to send it half a dozen times by half a dozen routes and pray one got through. It wasn’t very efficient. The same thing applied in many countries to railroads; they were inefficient in private hands so they nationalized them. In England the coal mines didn’t allow for a profit so the mines were nationalized and took a loss on production, piously calling it socialism. The miners, of course, were as exploited as they had been under private ownership.”

They checked out every room in the Leete quarters. They located bugs in the living room, the kitchenette, the dining room, in the bedroom of Martha and Raymond Leete, and in his study. There were none in Edith’s room, nor any in the baths or the hallway.

When they were done, they returned to the living room. Academician Leete’s face was set in an expression of absolute astonishment.

Julian said, keeping his voice level, “Oh, by the way, I have something in my apartment I want very much to show you. Have you time to drop by?”

“Of course, Julian.”

On the way down the hall, Leete whispered, “Can we talk out here?”

“I would think so, but I’m not sure. Hold it for awhile.”

In the West apartment, they went through the same routine. In the living room, even as he began to explore with the mop, Julian said, “Can I get you a drink?”

“Why, I wouldn’t mind a glass of Moselle.”

“I think I’ll have my usual Scotch and soda. Here, I’ll dial them.”

He pointed at the auto-bar and while Leete went through the routine of getting their drinks, Julian continued mopping his quarters.

As he searched, he kept up the former trend of their conversation. “What would you say the present socioeconomic system could be called?”

Leete waired a moment, as though considering the question. “Actually,” he said, “I rebel against labels—capitalism, feudalism, socialism, communism, liberalism, technocracy.” He snorted in deprecation. “I even rebel against the use of our back-patting term Republic of the Golden Rule. It’s all a great deal of nonsense. Society is in a continual state of flux. Under the chattel slavery system of Greece, and later on, you had a certain amount of feudalism, and you even had an emerging capitalist class. What do we have today? Once again, I rebel against labels, but I suppose if you must have terminology, I would say…” he hesitated, “…well, I would say we have somewhat of a combination of syndicalism, socialism—the DeLeonist type—technocracy, and meritocracy, as that brilliant Englishman Michael Young called it.”

Julian’s mop began to buzz. He traced it down. The bug was neatly located immediately below his phone screen, right on his desk.

He said, “Meritocracy? That’s a new one for me. It must have come along after I went into hibernation.”

He went on into his bedroom, and Leete, now completely aware of the game though not quite understanding it, continued to talk.

“I’m not sure when he wrote his book. I think it was entitled The Rise of the Meritocracy. You can look it up at your leisure in the International Data Banks. He foresaw something like our present Aptitude Quotient. I think his formula was I.Q. plus effort equals merit. As I recall, he projected himself into the year 2034 A.D. His basic idea was that even in his day it was no longer enough to be somebody’s nephew to obtain a reasonable post in society. Under Meritocracy, experts in education and selection apply scientific principles to sift out the leaders. In a word, you must show ‘merit.’ Then he asks the question, is this an undivided blessing?”

Julian had returned to the living room after completely exploring his apartment. He went over to his desk and upended the phone screen. Then he took his small pocket knife out and regarded the bug for a long quizzical moment. He opened the knife and carefully pried the listening device off—it had been held onto the surface by a suction cup—and examined it carefully.

In his time, in the cutthroat field of international finance, Julian West had often had his phones tapped, his quarters bugged, and, in turn had done the same to his rivals. However, he himself was not up on the mechanics of the thing. There were experts to be hired for such matters, private detectives and such. He had long had, on full-time retainer, two former C.I.A. men.

There were two tiny screws on the surface. Using the small blade of the knife, he carefully unscrewed them, while his companion continued to watch him. The top came off and inside was a wonder of miniaturization which he understood not at all. He thought about it for awhile, deciding finally that almost anything he did would destroy its effectiveness. But that wasn’t all that he wanted; when somebody came to check out why the bug had become inoperative, he didn’t want it to appear as though it had been tampered with. With a shrug he inserted the small blade of the knife under a tiny disk and pried it free.

Then he put the top on the bug and screwed the tiny screws back into place. He returned the device to its exact original position, and then replaced the phone screen.

He turned to Dr. Leete. “All right, there was only the one bug in my place. I’ve bollixed it: we can talk.”

“Should we return to my apartment and do the same to those?”

Julian shook his head. “Whoever is monitoring your apartment—and mine—would be irritated, but not surprised, if one of the bugs became inoperative. The things are delicate. But if all of them suddenly failed to transmit, then they’d know they’d been discovered and would figure out some new method of tapping you—tapping us. Leave the bugs in your apartment, warn Martha and Edith about them, and simply watch what you say.”

The other was completely out of his depth. “But who would care what any of us say?”

Julian sighed. “I suspect you know. Or, at least, I suspect that you suspect. The other day, after you’d had your two run-ins with the young hoodlums, Edith suggested you get in touch with Security and report the incidents. But you clammed up. Why?”

Leete was irritated. He said, finally, “Julian, though you have been literally cramming new information ever since we revived you, there are still a million-fold matters you do not understand.”

Julian was not above impatience himself. “As I am fully aware of, Raymond; however, there are some fields in which you people today are babes in the woods compared to me. Now, who are the people down enough on you to bug your apartment and attack you physically?”

Leete sighed. “Julian, for about a month now we’ve been telling you that this is no Utopia. There is no such thing as Utopia. Society is in a continual condition of flux. Changes have been made, are being made, and will be made.”

“Okay. So what are the changes that you are actively advocating that so irritate some other elements that they’re out to get you?”

“That isn’t the way I would put it.”

“That’s the way I put it,” Julian said emphatically. “Though in full realization that the world has manifold times as much knowhow as it did when I was put to sleep, I suspect that it has lost some of the knowhow of my day, that it has atrophied away.”

The academician sighed again. “Julian—Martha, Edith, and I have given you a brief rundown on today’s socioeconomic system. Government, if you can call it that, is largely in the hands of the Production Congress composed of representatives from all the guilds, which represent every necessary type of endeavor. Aside from local civic government, there is a skeleton national government, which you might compare to the House of Lords and the Queen and Royal Family of England at the time you went into stasis. Mostly show. A leftover from the past society, just as the Queen and the House of Lords were leftovers from feudalism.”

“All right, you’ve already told me about that.”

“Very well. I am prominent in a group that wishes to take a further step in attaining a society that will fulfill the promises and hopes that are at the root of our whole human civilization.”

“And that step is…?”

“World government. You see, there are three of what you used to call ‘world powers’ existing today. There are some minor differences in our socio-economic systems, but they are only minor. My associates and I believe it is time to take the step of uniting these three: United America, Common Europe, and the Soviet Complex. Once that is accomplished, one by one the so-called undeveloped countries will certainly apply for admission. Some of the small states that still exist in the East, the Near East, South America, and especially Africa, can only follow.”

“Why is all this important?”

“Amalgamating the three great powers would join our technologies and bring greater efficiency. There would be one great Production Congress, rather than three. And, so far as I see, the anachronistic national civic governments could be allowed to wither away completely, since there would no longer be foreign countries to deal with, with their ambassadors, consuls and so forth.”

Julian said, “That brings something else to mind. What’s happened to the underdeveloped countries in the last thirty years?”

’They are still largely undeveloped and backward. There are still small nations in, say, the Near East that are absolute monarchies—sheikdoms. As the value of oil decreases in the world, they become ever poorer. There are still military dictatorships in South America; their economies, unable to compete on such world markets as remain, subject their peoples to worse and worse poverty.”

“Then why would you want to take them into this new world government you advocate? They’d drag down the level of the advanced countries if you automatically put them on your same Guaranteed Annual Income.”

The other looked at him levelly. “Because they are members of the human race. To the question, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’, Julian, the answer is yes. Nor is it a question of their coming to us as beggars, at least most of them. These undeveloped countries have been unable to industrialize, not being able to compete with the economies of the advanced countries, but they are sources of raw materials. And many offer a great deal in very desirable localities for residential areas, in scenic areas for travelers, in areas to be converted into great World Parks. I, for instance, would love to see the whole Congo turned back to nature, reseeded with animal life ranging from gorillas to elephants.”

Julian nodded. “Tell me, Raymond, in this present society, what happens to the crackpot genius? Take Edison. I understand he had less than a year of schooling. Certainly the Aptitude Quotient computers wouldn’t have selected him.”

Leete chuckled. “I am afraid genius, crackpot or otherwise, will out in any society. For one thing, your Edison would have gotten more than a few months’ education today. But even if the computers had not selected him, his urge toward experimentation would have come out in his studies in his leisure time. As I said, genius will out. Both Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were born underprivileged, and in one of the most restrictive societies man has ever had—feudalism. It didn’t prevent them from turning out some of the greatest work man has ever accomplished.”

Julian took a breath. “All right. Another question. Why are you people so down on religion?”

The other looked at him in amazement. “We’re not down on religion. You can practice any religion you wish.”

“Then why do so few seem to?”

“Julian, it had already begun in your day. How many of your intelligent and educated friends really believed in the old fundamentalist or orthodox religions? I don’t mean just lip service, but believing the whole story?”

“I was raised an Episcopalian. I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to it, perhaps, but basically I believed in the Christian religion.”

“Oh, you did, eh? You know, Julian, for a long time I’ve held the belief that any philosophy, religion, or political belief can be summed up in two hundred words. If it can’t, something is wrong with it. Very well. Sit down at the desk there and give me the Judeo-Christian religion in two hundred words.”

Julian scowled at him, but obeyed. He sat down at his desk, and instead of utilizing the voco-typer, took up a stylo and paper. He began to write. He soon found two hundred words weren’t a great deal. He scratched out some of the sentences but persevered. He must have sat for the better part of an hour before finishing. But when he reread what he had written, and reread it again, he took up the three or four sheets of paper, crumpled them and threw them into the wastepaper basket.

He returned to the chair opposite the doctor.

He said sourly, “Anybody who had never heard of the Christian religion and read that would think I was an idiot if I believed it.”

Leete said, his voice wry, “You know, most of our Earth religions have subscribed to the idea that God, or the gods, created man in his own image and is highly concerned with him. But now we are tending to the belief that man is far from alone in being an intelligent creature in the universe; that most likely there are other intelligent life forms far in advance of ours. Somebody somewhere pointed out that if there are gods whose chief concern is man, they can’t be very important gods, considering the extent of the universe.”

Julian grunted amusement. He said, “I’ve heard of the attempts to contact extraterrestrial intelligent life.”

“Yes, it is just a matter of time, I suppose. There’s one interesting aspect of religion that I’ve considered that I suspect few religious persons have. Specifically, suppose that there is a God, and that he isn’t benevolent.”

“How do you mean?”

“Obviously, such a being would be far, far further above us than, say, we are above the cockroach. And we would be less capable of understanding him than the cockroach is of understanding us. We would have no idea what motivates him.”

Julian regarded him blankly.

Leete chuckled. “Take, for instance, the cow as it was before you went into stasis. Cows, had they been capable of thought, might have thought of we humans as gods since we fed them, housed them, protected them from enemies, took care of their health, even helped bring their offspring into the world. Surely they would have thought of us as benevolent. In actuality, we stole their milk all their lives, and finally wound up killing and eating them.”

Julian said, “We seem to have drifted far from our original subject of why our apartments are being bugged, world government, and socioeconomic systems. I’m still not sure just what label this system would bear.”

The other said humorously, “When I was a young fellow there was a science fiction editor named John C. Campbell who once wrote that any socioeconomic system will work well given top men to run it. Both heaven and hell are despotisms. Today, with our computers and data banks, we have the means to find the best men to direct the workings of our society. However, I far from agree with Campbell. For instance, it is my belief that if instead of Nixon and his people at the helm of American government at the time you went into hibernation, you’d had Jesus for president and his twelve disciples for a cabinet, the country would still have gone to pot. The politico-economic system no longer worked, and nobody could have made it work. For one—”

But at that point the identity screen buzzed. When they looked up, they saw it was Edith.