Equality: In the Year 2000

Chapter Three The Year 2, New Calendar

When Julian entered the breakfast nook, the three Leetes were already at the table but evidently hadn’t ordered yet. He was still somewhat shaken by the nightmare. The child’s death had been the most horrible he had ever witnessed. And it couldn’t have been more useless. Within a month or so, the French had capitulated and the Sultan, Mohammed V, had returned to his throne. Much good it had done the Moors.

They went through the standard morning greetings and Julian seated himself.

Doctor Leete said, “We put off deciding on breakfast until you joined us. I suggest we have Eggs à la Julian, your formula for shirred eggs that you introduced to us the other morning. Martha didn’t have breakfast with us that day.”

“Very well,” Martha Leete agreed. “But only if Jule will submit to one of my recipes for lunch. I too am an amateur cook, Julian, with quite a few of my concoctions on file in the building’s kitchen data banks.” She made a move. “I wonder if anyone else ever orders them.”

The doctor dialed the breakfast.

Edith asked, “Did you sleep well?”

“Very well,” Julian lied.

“After slumbering over thirty years, beating Rip Van Winkle’s record hands down, I’d think you’d never need to sleep again,” she said, the sides of her mouth turning down in amusement.

All over again it came to him what an attractive young woman she was—and the fact that she would never be his. Their differences, no matter how small they might seem on the surface, were insurmountable.

The center of the table dropped down, to return with their breakfast. It was identically prepared to that of the other morning when he had first dictated the recipe into the kitchen data banks, and identically delicious.

“But this is wonderful,” Martha exclaimed. “As I recall the food when I was a girl, it was on the grim side.”

Julian thought about that as he ate. “I suppose that for every flow of tide, there’s an ebb. It’s true that back in the 1960s and ’70s, food as a whole was deteriorating. But, in rebellion, there was an increasing number of people who were boycotting drive-in hamburger stands, cafeterias and so forth, and cooking their own would-be gourmet meals in their homes. All over the country, gourmet food stores, natural food farms and such were springing up. I used to know a chap who practically hand-raised beef. He fed the steers largely with mash saturated with beer, and kept them in stalls, never allowing them to graze. Every day, each steer was massaged. The beef produced was superlative. You had to buy a whole steer, which he had butchered for you, and you put it down in a deep freeze.”

“It must have cost a fortune,” Doctor Leete said.

“I imagine,” Julian replied. “I wouldn’t know. My chef used to pick it up. Price was no object.” He looked over at the doctor’s wife. “The grim food was eaten by those who couldn’t afford such luxuries.”

Edith said, a bit tartly, “Had you no qualms about eating the best while most of your countrymen—”

“None whatsoever. We of the elite believed that we deserved the best.”

“Who decided you were the elite?” she inquired sarcastically.

“We did,” he said, amused at her snide tone.

“Hmmm,” Leete interjected. “The party roughens. Let’s change the subject.”

Julian put his fork down. “You know,” he began, “my stay here with you has afforded me the epitome of hospitality, but it can’t extend forever. I feel I am imposing. Isn’t there some manner in which I could acquire quarters of my own, so I wouldn’t be always under foot? A single room would be ample.”

Leete chuckled. “There is already an apartment at your disposal, Julian. And it has been since you came out of hibernation. It is on the same floor as this one, and you can move in whenever you wish. Of course, there are no restraints upon you whatsoever. If you wish, you can move to some other area of the country, take a house or cottage—or even acquire a mobile home, if you like. However, it has been the earnest hope of the University that you would remain in residence for a time at least, for additional observation and later, perhaps, for some lectures about your experiences.”

“It’s wonderful here,” Julian said quickly. “’You’ve all been most kind. However, I would like my own quarters. But how do I pay for such an apartment.?”

“The rent is deducted from your Guaranteed Annual Income. As is everyone else’s.”

Julian frowned. “You mean, everybody pays the same rent, no matter how large the house or apartment?”

“Oh, no. The amount each citizen receives annually is large enough that he can do just about anything he wishes, but it is not infinite, obviously. Thus, some have larger apartments or homes than average, if that is what they particularly like. Others would rather spend less for rent, living in smaller quarters, and devote what they save to, say, travel—such places as Nepal, for mountain climbing, or Switzerland for skiing. Others are boating fans, possibly combined with such related sports as skin diving, fishing, water skiing and such. Some people, indeed, don’t have apartments or houses at all, but live on boats for which they also must pay rent. Oh, there are many ways to spend your credits on things other than high rents.”

“I see. Well, following breakfast, could you show me my apartment?” He added somewhat ruefully, “I won’t have much packing to do. In fact, I’m all packed. Everything I own is in my pockets.”

“Certainly.” The doctor had finished his breakfast. He put down his utensils. “Why don’t we go now?”

Julian West’s quarters were only a short way down the corridor.

The doctor said, “It was thought that to be handy to us in this manner would enable you to easily check if anything comes up you don’t understand. You are, of course, perfectly free to drop in on us at any time. My family is still assigned to adapting you to this new world.”

“Very kind of you,” Julian murmured.

Evidently the identity screen of the apartment had already been set to pick up his features; the door opened automatically at his approach.

He found the apartment more than satisfactory, though it gave him a somewhat impersonal feeling. He was going to have to work at locating some art objects, make a few changes in the furniture, acquire a differently colored rug.

While the doctor patiently sat in the living room which featured a window that composed the whole wall overlooking the university campus, Julian explored the place. Living room, bedroom, bath, small dining room, kitchenette complete with breakfast alcove, a study. The apartment was smaller than that of the Leetes, true, but amply spacious.

Exploration through, he returned to the living room and the doctor.

Leete came to his feet. “I’ll leave you now so you can accustom yourself to your new home. I assume you are fully acquainted with such matters as ordering from the kitchen and from the ultra-market, how to utilize the TV phone, and the National Data Banks library booster, your auto-teacher and so forth. But of course you are: you’ve been using them in my own apartment.”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Very well. Drop by as soon as you wish, my boy.” The doctor smiled. “Imagine me calling you that. I find it hard to accept that you are older than I am.”

Julian smiled too.

He left and for a moment, Julian wasn’t sure that he didn’t wish to follow Leete back to his apartment. Aside from the doctor, his wife, and Edith, Julian knew no one in this world. Or, at least, not in this part of it. There were surely past acquaintances throughout the country, who were still alive. By now they would be in their sixties, at least, and most in their seventies or more, but, sooner or later, he would get around to looking them up.

He could hardly have mentioned it to Leete, but his main reason for remaining in the Julian West University City was the fact that he was in love with Edith Leete. Though he had accepted that a permanent relationship with her was not possible, he still wanted to be near her, no matter how frustrating the contact.

He puttered around for a time, getting used to his new surroundings. The large window in the living room gave him the uncomfortable feeling of being in a goldfish bowl. He was on the fiftieth floor of the high-rise apartment building, however, and it was unlikely that anyone could see into his quarters. Then he noticed a dial at the side of the window. To his surprise, twisting it made the window go from completely clear to completely opaque. The day was superlative, so he returned it to transparency.

Well, his determination was to learn Interlingua as rapidly as possible. He entered the study and seated himself before the auto-teacher and activated it. In spite of everything that Edith and the others had said, he was going to make every effort to bring himself up to date at least to the point where he could communicate intelligently in this world of the year 2 New Calendar.

At that moment the door hummed.

He got up and went back into the living room. The door screen showed that it was Edith and someone he didn’t know. He activated the door and greeted them.

The stranger was a young man in his mid-twenties who looked amazingly healthy and alert; tall, blond, Scandinavian in appearance. It occurred to Julian that all the young people he had seen since coming out of stasis were unbelievably fit looking. In a world where all received the best nourishment and the best of medical care from cradle to grave, he supposed the unattractive in appearance would be few indeed.

Edith smiled with her usual charm. “Julian, this is Sean Mathieson O’Callahan. He’s a fellow student of anthropology.”

The two men shook hands. “Well, now I know four persons in this era. Come in,” said Julian.

He offered them seats.

“That’s quite an imposing name you have,” he said to the newcomer.

O’Callahan replied, “I think we’ve changed the method of naming since—since your time. We now follow the system the Spanish utilized. Sean, of course, is my given name. Mathieson is my father’s name, and O’Callahan is my mother’s. In short, descent is matrilineal, as it was through most of human history. It’s based on the truism that it’s a wise man who knows who his father is, but everyone knows his mother.”

Edith laughed. “I told you he was an anthropologist.”

Julian asked, “How is one named if the father isn’t known?”

“We just use the mother’s name then,” O’Callahan said. “It’s not particularly important. There is no such thing as illegitimacy.”

“While we were waiting for you to come out of hibernation, we investigated your background, Jule,” said Edith. “Your mother’s name, maiden, was Van Hass, so by our usage your full name is Julian West Van Hass. Your parents were the famous jet set members, Barry and Betty—the Wild Wests, as they were called.”

Julian nodded. “They were killed in a racing accident when I was quite young. I don’t remember them too well. I didn’t see much of them. I was usually in school, and they’d be off somewhere, father playing polo in the Argentine or participating in glider competitions in Austria, or the two of them winning automobile rallies in France. They earned their names… the Wild Wests.”

“Something like Scott and Zelda?” Edith asked.

He looked at her. “I suppose so. You’ve read about the Fitzgeralds?”

“Yes, of course. I was always fascinated by their story. What a waste of talent when he died in his forties.”

“It wasn’t wasted,” Julian said. “He simply burned himself out in a comparatively few years. Some of his contemporaries, such as Sinclair Lewis and possibly Hemingway and Steinbeck, wrote on after they should have stopped. My parents were friends of the Fitzgeralds and Hemingway. In fact, I knew Papa myself.”

“Zen!” Sean exclaimed. “Imagine having actually met Hemingway!”

“He was his own best character,” Julian said.

Edith bent forward. “You see why you are of such importance to us, Jule. You actually knew Hemingway. I understand he drank.”

He looked at her. “Are you kidding?”

“That’s what I mean,” she said. “You knew Hemingway. How recently did you see him?”

“Why about eight—” He stopped, and there must have been something in his face.

Edith said quickly, “Jule, Jule, I’m sorry.”

He changed the subject. “Why aren’t we speaking in Interlingua?”

Sean O’Callahan said somewhat shyly, “If you don’t mind, I’d just as soon speak English. If you don’t keep in practice with a language it falls away from you.”

“You’ve studied English, then?”

“Yes, but not particularly so.” He smiled in self-depreciation. “I learned it at home as a youngster. You see, my parents were die-hard conservatives. While the rest of the country was going all out to master the new international tongue, converting to the metric system, recycling their old gasoline automobiles, Mother and Dad struck stubbornly to English, and to inches, feet and miles, pints and quarts and all the rest of it, and they kept their overgrown Buick until it fell apart.”

Edith laughed.

Sean said, “At any rate, although I learned Interlingua as soon as I attended school, we spoke English at home.”

“Well,” Julian told him, “since you’re a guest, I give in. But I, too, need practice—in Interlingua.”

Edith said, “I brought Sean over since Father thinks you should be meeting more of our contemporaries. And Sean has been nagging me since you were first revived.”

Julian nodded. “It’s just as interesting for me to meet you. By your appearance, I assume you were born while I was still in stasis.”

“Yes, I am twenty-six years of age.”

“Oh, then you had your first Muster Day last year, as I understand the institution. The day when the computers either select you for some job… or don’t.”

The younger man was rueful. “Didn’t, in my case. My field is history, archaeology, and anthropology. The need for teachers and field workers is rather minimal. I wasn’t chosen by the Aptitude Quotient computers. I’ll keep working away at it as a student but I rather doubt if I will ever be selected for a job. When only two percent of the population can do all the necessary work, you don’t have much of a chance. This year, only a couple of dozen graduates were selected from our university city to go into the field of archaeology.

Julian shook his head. “Tough luck. It’s directly opposite from my time. In those days, most people who could get out of work did so. Under this socioeconomic system, with everyone trained in the field they like best, you practically all want to work and there is no need for you.”

“That’s right,” Sean said, his voice still rueful. Then, “Do you mind if I ask you some questions, Mr. West?”

“Julian, or better still, Jule. Certainly you may, if you grant me the same privilege. Fire away.”

“You were in Vietnam, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was.”

“A combat soldier?”

Julian nodded cautiously. Like most combat men, he didn’t particularly like to recall his experiences. He had found long since that those who talked most about military action had usually seen the least.

Sean pulled at the lobe of his right ear. “As an historian, it fascinates me.”

Julian frowned. “But the Vietnam War ended only a bit over thirty years ago. There must be a good many veterans among your older people. A man who was your age in the latter Vietnam years would only be in his mid-fifties or so now.”

But the other shook his head. “After thirty years you don’t remember actual events with a great deal of accuracy. In fact, some authorities claim that after a quarter of a century you usually don’t have correct memory at all, but only memories of memories. I have talked to a good many soldiers but not very satisfactorily. But you… for you it is as though it happened just the other day. In your memory, how long has it been since you were in action?”

“A few months,” Julian replied uncomfortably. Now that he thought about it, Doctor Leete had told him much the same thing.

Edith put in hurriedly, “I am afraid the conversation is upsetting you, Jule. Father wants you to avoid emotional disturbances at this stage of your recovery.”

“It’s all right,” Julian said, looking at Sean. “What did you want to know?”

“You can still do such things as fire a machine gun accurately, throw a grenade, fight with a bayonet…?”

“In Vietnam there was precious little bayonet fighting. Possibly in the First World War, in the trenches, but by Vietnam the bayonet was more or less antiquated. Grenades? There’s not much to know about grenades. You pull the pin and heave, or, if you need more distance, you attach a grenade launcher to the end of your rifle. A machine gun? Yes, I could field strip a machine gun in complete darkness, or a .45 automatic, for that matter. Could I still fire one accurately? Yes. I was an averagely good marksman.”

“What rank did you hold… Julian?”

“I was discharged a major.”

The other was leaning forward. “Excuse me, but… well, did you ever kill anyone?”

Julian took a breath. “Yes.”

“How many?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t the vaguest idea. You see, in modern warfare—I suppose I should say in the Vietnam War, rather than use the term ‘modern’—combat doesn’t much resemble the war films you have possibly scanned from the data banks. Hollywood didn’t make movies that portrayed reality; they would be too boring. In the movies, the action is eyeball to eyeball, with the bad guys—the Germans, Japs, Koreans, Viet Cong, or whoever—falling like flies before the good guys who are armed with submachine guns that never run out of ammo and never heat up, no matter how many hundreds of rounds go through the barrels in a few minutes. In actuality, you see comparatively little of the enemy, although there are some exceptions. Fire power is all the thing. You fire in the general direction of where his fire is coming from. You put as much lead and steel into the air as you can, hoping that Charlie will run into it. You saturate the area he is in with bullets, with mortar shells, with artillery shells, with bombs from your air cover. And then, when all is quiet and Charlie is either dead or, more likely, has largely slipped away, you go forward and get a body count.”

“A body count?” Edith said. In spite of herself, her face was registering that she was upset.

Julian looked at her. “Yes. It was a return to the barbarism of Indian warfare days. To prove how many of the enemy we had killed, we cut off their ears and took them back to base headquarters.”

“Proof of the number you had destroyed, eh?” Sean asked, fascinated.

Julian took another quick breath. “Yes. But the thing is, the Colonel, and the General above him, liked to have an impressive body count, so we customarily also cut the ears off any women, children, or old men that had managed to get in the line of fire or bombing.”

“But those were civilians,” Edith said in horror.

“Right,” Julian agreed, his tone sour. “But we couldn’t allow that to interfere with a good body count.” He scowled at Sean. “Did you labor under the illusion that combat was glamorous?”

The other didn’t respond. Instead he asked, “Were you ever afraid when you were fighting?”

“I was always afraid when I was fighting,” Julian said flatly. “Anybody in combat who doesn’t get afraid—the hero type, in short—isn’t the kind of man you want next to you. He’s one of the crazies and is apt to get you in trouble.”

That set the student of history back a bit. He asked his next question more hesitantly, “Did you ever do anything that resulted in your being decorated, getting a medal?”

Julian grunted. “I was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, also several battle stars and three Purple Hearts.” A muscle jumped in his jaw and he looked into Edith’s face almost apologetically. “I didn’t ask for them. After two or three weeks in the rice paddies and the jungles, I did not ask for those things. But it was meaningless to refuse them—particularly the Purple Hearts.”

“Purple Hearts?” she echoed.

“Yes. You received one for being wounded.”

Her eyes rounded.

He shrugged it off. “Routine stuff. Once I was hit by a piece of mortar shell while sitting in a foxhole minding my own business. Once I stepped on a homemade Viet Cong mine. It didn’t go off very efficiently or I wouldn’t be here. The other time I was hit by an M-16 rifle slug from one of my own men. It was an accident… I think. Toward the end of the war, quite a few officers took hits from their men, if they seemed to be too gung ho. Not that I was.”

“Gung ho?” Sean said. He had been taking notes in a small black notebook with a stylo.

“Anxious to win the war,” Julian explained dryly. “Officers who would try to get their men into situations the men didn’t like the looks of.”

“But I thought you had to obey an officer’s orders.”

“Yes, that was the theory. But it wasn’t a very popular war and the men wanted to live long enough to go home. Nobody seemed to know why we were fighting except the politicians back in Washington. Toward the end, morale was so bad among the infantry that it was impossible to remain in Vietnam, which was one of the real reasons we pulled out, rather than the propaganda reasons the people were given.” He stopped. “Why are you taking notes, Sean?”

The younger man flushed. “When I was turned down as a teacher, I decided that one way to be active in the work I like is to become a journalist. I plan to do as many articles as I can on developments in the fields I know and submit them to the news. If enough readers dial my articles, I may be able to become a full-time journalist. I’d rather teach, but since my Aptitude Quotient wasn’t high enough, journalism might be the next best thing.”

“I wish you luck, Sean,” Edith said. She took her transceiver from her pocket and touched the stud for the time. “My goodness, sirs,” she exclaimed. “I’ll have to run. I have an appointment.” She rose with a degree of grace that didn’t go unnoticed.

Julian had also started to stand, but she grimaced at him playfully. “None of that male chauvinism courtesy,” she said. “I don’t stand for you, why should you for me?”

“I was going to see you out.”

“Why? I can find my own way to the door and you’re still talking to Sean.”

“As you wish,” he said in resignation. “I’ll see you later, Edie.”

“Fine. Is there anything you need that we haven’t checked you out on as yet?”

“I can’t think of anything.”

She looked about the room. “This place is on the grim side. Why don’t you dial Art, in the data banks, and select some paintings?”

“I was going to ask you about that. Can I afford them?”

“The price is minimal.”

He said unhappily, “I imagine modern art is pretty far out. Frankly, my tastes never developed beyond the Impressionists.”

Edith practically snorted. “With some twenty million painters in the country, every school that ever existed, from the Cro-Magnon cave painters to the present, is represented. You’ll find all the Impressionists you want in the painting banks.”

“Twenty million painters?” he repeated blankly.

Both Sean and Edith laughed.

Edith said, “I don’t really know the exact number. I told you that just about everyone in United America has at least one art or handicraft as a hobby, beyond whatever type of work he specializes in. Well, until later… Good-bye, Sean.”

The young man waved farewell to her, and she turned and left.

Julian looked back at Sean. “Anything more you want to know about blood and guts?”

“Not at the moment.” The other put away his notebook and stylo. “But I’d appreciate the opportunity to talk with you more when I’ve digested what you’ve told me and thought up some more questions.”

“Anytime. I’ll probably have a few to ask you, as well. I seem to have done most of the talking today.”

Sean hesitated for a moment. “You know, I have some friends who would love to meet you too. Do you think you could sneak away from Doctor Leete and his family some evening?”

“Sneak away?”

Sean laughed, in some embarrassment. He said, “Leete’s been given the job of adjusting you to your new environment, and it’s well known that he’s keeping you on a tight rein. It frustrates some of the rest of us who would love to have the chance to talk with a man who has actually been in combat—just a few months ago, in his mind—who has witnessed riots in the streets of the nineteen-sixties, who remembers clearly the days of street crime, juvenile delinquency, and all the rest of it.”

Julian smiled. “I didn’t think of the good doctor as my jailer, but I suppose in a way he is. How could we get together?”

“Why don’t we meet down on the ground level in the Cub Bar?”

“Cub Bar?”

“I suppose thus far the Leetes haven’t taken you out to any of the public places of entertainment. It’s a pleasant, intimate little bar, one of several dozen in this building. Could you meet me there, say, tonight at eight?”

“Certainly,” Julian said, standing as the other did. “I’d like to see the present-day equivalent of a bar. And I’m anxious to meet more of the present generation. Will they speak English too? My Interlingua isn’t all that good.”

“They’ll speak English.”

Julian saw him to the door. After Sean was gone, he thought of one question he could have asked. How did one go about getting a girl to sleep with him in this day and age?