LITMIR.BIZ

      Contents

       Title Page

      Introduction

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Also part of The Brian Aldiss Collection

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       Introduction

      Some Futures last for ever, when even the Past has gone past. Long ago, in the nineteen-seventies, it was possible to imagine that the good old democratic world might be overcome by a darker and more savage world to the East.

      In 1976, a literary conference was held in Posna´n, Poland. The creative science fiction writers of the time, American and British, artists of darkened worlds, were greatly interested by the prospect of a Communist conference, there in the heart of the Other Side.

      I accepted the invitation and drove across divided Europe to Posna´n. The conference was well arranged. Everyone was polite. We talked a lot; we drank a lot; we attended long and rather tedious sessions; we walked the streets of this country town, where considerable reconstruction had revived districts ruined by the Nazi armies in the Second World War.

      During one of the long academic sessions, we were introduced to a novel with impeccable Communist antecedents.

      My memory – always unreliable concerning future or past – tells me that this polemic was a kind of satire in which the world has been over-run by democracy. Of course, this transition does not work very well, which made (so we were told) the tale all the more hilarious.

      The academic explaining this master work to us rocked with laughter. Applause broke out (who knows, carefully rehearsed applause?) among the audience.

      The academic concluded by saying, ‘Certainly no writer in the West would dare to write a story in which Communism had conquered the world.’

      I couldn’t help it. I found myself immediately itching to get back to my Oxford desk …

      And this is the book I wrote about the universal triumph of Communism. Jonathan Cape published it in hardcover early in February 1978, and Harper and Row in the States a little later. Heyne in Germany followed suit, and Timbro in Sweden shortly after that. Since which, I’ve lost count.

      But never was my novel published in a Communist country – at least, not to my knowledge …

       Chapter One

      Inspirational music played as they moved from the terminal buildings into the ferry.

      Without fuss, without pushing, they settled into relaxers and waited for the ferry to depart. Fifty-two of them took their places, the sexes about equally balanced. Their clothes were so similar in cut, and so subdued in colour and material, as to resemble a uniform; their hair, whether male or female, was trimmed to approximately the same length; their faces were all bland, even blank. They sat without restlessness. They were the elite of the system, allowed to vacation on the Classified planet of Lysenka II.

      The ferry rose silently, dead on time. World Peace City, the Earth itself, shrank behind them. They watched the planet dwindle, then turned and smiled circumspectly at each other. They were strangers and nobody knew who was who; even among the elite there were many power grades.

      From the ferry, the passengers transferred to a gulfhopper awaiting them in a parking orbit round the Moon. As soon as the ferry dropped away, the gulfhopper established a charm-field and began its expensive cratobatics. Earth disappeared like an eyeball dropping down a drain; the sun was transformed into an icicle of light, and vanished. Time became a series of equations.

      Oblivious to alarm, the tourists could now settle down and become acquainted with one another. The distance from the Solar System to the Lysenka System was 50.2 light years, in Ordinary Space terms, so passengers had forty hours on the transference from system to system in which to indulge in social intercourse or related activities.

      The gulfhopper was a spacious craft, well provided with lounges, restaurants, view-chambers, an aquatics suite and private rooms. Most of the tourists, being important people, kept their importance in repair by walking about the public rooms in a dignified manner. Hostesses in blue Gulfways uniform assisted some passengers to meet the partners that Extra-System selectors had chosen for them, if they had not had time to meet before embarking at World Peace City.

      One of the smiling hostesses introduced two tall people, a man and a woman, who briefly touched fingertips and then stood regarding each other. Nodding, the hostess left them to themselves.

      ‘My name is Jerezy Kordan, World Citizen 692,’ the male said, smiling to soften the familiarity of using only his last three numbers on first meeting. ‘I am pleased that we are to be associated for this vacation.’

      The female smiled back and was just as informal. ‘I’m World Citizen 194, Millia Sygiek. And I’m pleased that the selector picked you, Utopianist Kordan, since I know that we are going to be compatible.’

      Kordan had a long serious face with thick lips which were generally pursed, and long grey eyes. He stood squarely before her, his hands hanging relaxedly by his side.

      Sygiek was almost as tall as he, a woman with light brown hair and grey eyes. Her jaw was firm, her expression a little severe until she smiled. She folded her hands and held them at waist level as they talked.

      ‘We could be nothing but compatible since the computer graded us for compatibility. Compatibility is a quality we both rate as desirable,’ she said.

      ‘Inevitably. Pleasure is stipulated as one of the factors of our vacation, and so compatibility is part of the guarantee. Don’t you find compatibility a positive quality, a constructive quality?’

      ‘I was meaning only to imply that some Progressives regard the male – female relationship as a little old-fashioned, even irrelevant to the needs of the system: they question the useful function of gender.’

      He gestured slightly with his hands. ‘We tolerate Progressives in our world society.’ He spoke without any particular emphasis. ‘But of course they form only approximately 1.45 per cent of the population.’ He took her arm as if dismissing that subject.

      They were on their way towards their private room when a tenor voice said softly over the artificial pulse-beats, ‘Remember that sexual intercourse is an approved social usage. It is pleasurable. Inevitably, it increases the physical and mental well-being of both partners, thus enhancing their value to the System. Associate with your partner as much as possible on the journey. Happy lying!’

      Sygiek smiled. ‘You see, like good utopianists, our wishes run ahead of the official reminder.’

      But, as they

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