Chapter V

The following week Shamar spent many hours walking the streets of Xxla. He tried to convince himself that the people he had met at the party were not representative.

They were.

Friday night Ge-Ge announced “Shamar, I can’t stand much more of this! What’s going to happen? What is Von Stutsman going to do? He’s onto something. I sometimes wish--oh, God!--I sometimes wish something would happen so we’d know where we stand, so we’d know what to do!” He tried to put an arm around her, but she brushed it away. “Don’t! Let me alone!”

She retired to the other side of the room. For a moment, and for no reason, the hostility in the air between them was like ice and fire.

“I’m sorry,” Ge-Ge said curtly.

“That’s all right,” Shamar said, his voice cold and distant.

“Let’s talk about something else.”

They were silent for a minute. Then he said, “I wanted to ask you. Of all the people I talked to, I couldn’t find anyone who seemed to give a damn, one way or the other, about Earth. Why is that? You’d think they’d be at least talking about Earth.”

“Why should they be? We’ve got our own problems.”

At that point, the police arrived and took Shamar the Worker away.

They put him in a cell in which there were already three other prisoners.

“What you in for, buddy?”

Shamar studied the prisoner for a moment without answering. His companions looked up.

“No visible means of support,” Shamar said.

“I’m Long John Freed.”

Shamar nodded.

“They’re trying to hook you for evading the productivity tax, huh?”

Shamar declined comment.

Freed settled back on his bunk. “I say take them for all you can. Now, look, you’re a little guy. So they bleed us white. Take a factory manager or an important Black Market operator--you think they pay taxes? You can bet they don’t. It’s a racket. The poor pay and pay because they can’t hire fancy lawyers to lie for them; and the rich take and take. I don’t see why the Party puts up with it.”

Freed shifted his position. “Say what you will about the Party--and I know it’s got it’s faults--still, there are dedicated men in it. I may be a small-time crook, but I’m as patriotic as the next man. The Party’s done a lot of good.

“First time for you? How old are you, twenty-seven or so? First time, they usually try to recruit you for the Factory Force.

“It’s not such a bad racket. When you start out, they toss you in with lots of kids--usually the draftees. You get six weeks pick-and-shovel, and you’re really dragging when you finish that. Then comes specialist school.

“Try to get in as an electrician or plumber. Plasterers or bricklayers have to work too hard. Carpentry’s not bad--I’d hold out for cabinet-making, rather than rough carpentry, if I had to go into that. Then there’s real specialties. Tile laying. You have to have a personality for that, or you’d go nuts. Demolition’s not too bad; you blow up obsolete factories. That would have been right down my alley.”

Freed was silent a moment, then he resumed:

“Sometimes I may talk like a radical, and maybe I am a little of a radical, I don’t know. You look at the overall picture, things ain’t too bad. I’ve known a lot of thieves and petty crooks in my time. As a class, for pure patriotism, I’ll stack them up against anybody you can name; and in a way, you know, I’m kind of proud of that ... Well, let’s shut up and get some shut-eye.”

When finally he slept, Shamar dreamed that the Party was a vast, invulnerable pyramid resting on the shifting base of the population. It was constructed to dampen out vibrations. The bottom quivered, and the quiver ran upward a few inches and was absorbed. The top of the pyramid remained stable, fixed and motionless, indifferent even to its own foundation. The pyramid was built like an earthquake-proof tower. It was built to last. The Party was built to govern. It need only devote itself to its own preservation. Any other issue was secondary.

It was an organic machine. The gears were flesh and blood. The people on top were maintenance engineers. Their job was to go around with an oil can that they could squirt when necessary to keep friction to a minimum.

He awakened the following morning ravenously hungry and was hugely disappointed by breakfast. Even discounting his somewhat biased viewpoint, the food was inedible.

Freed accepted Shamar’s share eagerly with the comment, “It’ll taste better after you miss a few meals. It always does.”

An hour later, the jailer came to open the cell.

“Shamar the Worker? Get your stuff. We’re going.”

Ge-Ge was waiting in the reception room. Her hair had been especially waved for the occasion. She wore a suit newly pressed and gleaming. She had tears in her eyes.

She fled to his arms. “Darling!” she cried, caressing his face with childlike wonder. “Was it awful? Did they beat you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Darling, we’re going to get you out on bail. I’ve made all the arrangements. We just have to go to the Judge’s chambers for a minute, and they’ll let you go. Thank God you’re going to be out of this horrible place, at least for a little while.”

The jailer brought Shamar’s belt and his bag of possessions. Shamar signed a receipt for them and they went to the Judge.

The Judge said, “Please be seated.” He had a resonant and friendly voice. He went to his desk and sat down.

Ge-Ge and Shamar seated themselves before him.

“Ah, you young people,” he said. “Now, you must be Shamar the Worker, and you--”

“Garfling Germadpoldlt.”

“Of course.” He turned to Shamar. “I hate to see a fine young person like you in trouble, Shamar. It seems to me such a waste. Man and boy, for sixty years I’ve been a dedicated worker for the Party. Oh, Shamar, when I think of that glorious paradise to come--that time of wealth and plenty for all--that time when the riches and abundance of Mother Itra will, from Automation, overflow alike the homes of the rich and poor...”

They waited.

He continued. “Here I sit, year after year, Garfling and Shamar, judging my fellow men. Judging poor creatures who do not live the Dream. I sometimes feel that this is not the way. I sometimes feel my job is out there on the street corners, preaching the Dream, awakening the souls, telling the story of love and beauty and abundance in the life to come.

“Ah, me. But the world is not yet perfect, is it? And man’s understanding is imperfect. Here you are before me today, Shamar, with no visible means of support and no record of having paid productivity taxes. Oh, what a grim and fearful picture! In all your life have you ever once thought of your obligation to the future? You have failed yourself; you have failed the Party; and failed the future.

“Yet--in a larger sense--although this in no way militates against your own guilt--have we not failed you? How have we permitted a human soul to degrade himself to the point where we must punish him?”

Abruptly, the Judge stood up. “Well, I’ve done the best I can. I remand you to the custody of Miss Germadpoldlt. Your trial will be set at a later date. You are not to leave Xxla without permission of this court. And I hope my lecture today has fallen on fertile soil. It is not too late to correct your ways. And I may say, if I am the one who hears your case, your conduct between now and the trial may have some bearing on the outcome.”

They took a taxi back to his apartment. Ge-Ge trembled violently most of the way and nestled against him; they murmured their affection.

After he had been fed, she said nervously, “It was Von Stutsman who was responsible for your arrest. I should have known we couldn’t fight the Party. If he digs hard enough, nothing on Itra can save us.”

Finally, she went out to canvas lawyers.

She came back at dusk.