Read Online Island Worlds by John Maddox Roberts, Eric Kotani - Free Book Online
Authors: John Maddox Roberts, Eric Kotani
Ads: Link
stick slightly as four youths in leather masks walked by, studying the two truculently through slanted goggles. The four wore metal-plated gloves. They passed on and Fu relaxed slightly.
"What's left," Fu went on, "is despair and envy."
"Despair I can understand," Thor commented, "but why envy?"
"That brings us back to holo programming. You saw some of this in your sampling today, but it pervades all of popular programming, not just the space-oriented series like Asteroids . Everywhere, the emphasis is on the doings and possessions of the absurdly rich. These people we see all around us here spend most of their day, vicariously, amid the surroundings of the filthy rich and they know that they'll never have access to a life like that. Worse, they can't even have the illusion that the rich and powerful are somehow superior to themselves. They see that those people are just jerks like everybody else."
"So what can they do?" Thor asked.
"They can vote," Fu said. "With any degree of solidarity, the unemployed or semi-employed underclass forms the most powerful voting bloc in any nation that has a popular vote at all. That's too much potential political power to just leave lying around unexploited. Earth First has figured a way to make use of them." He nodded to a group of men who had just entered the complex. They looked like factory workers just coming off shift from some light industry facility nearby. They wore coveralls with a company logo on the breast that Thor couldn't make out, but each wore another device on his back that was large enough to read from the second level; it was the symbol ©1.
"Now they're being told that it's the offworlders that're bleeding them," Fu said. "Precious tax money is going into expensive projects in space from which they derive no benefit. It's a stroke of genius, really."
"Why do you say that?" Opposite them on the same level, he saw a sign advertising a drug service which tailored its product to the body chemistry of the buyer.
"Well, because you can have great big demonstrations and mass rallies without ugly pogroms. After all, the people they're learning to hate are millions of klicks away."
Suddenly, Thor was profoundly depressed. The sheer immensity of the problem paralyzed the mind. "Come on," he said, "let's go."
"But there's lots more to see," Fu protested. "You haven't even gone inside one of the pain palaces yet."
"Not tonight," Thor said. "I'll come back later. I've had enough for now."
"It's a little too much to take in all at once," Fu agreed, leading the way back down to the entrance. "Rest up tomorrow and I'll take you to some other places. There's a religious revival over on Cahuenga that's been going on for three months. You have to see it to understand what despair is all about."
They walked back out through the littered entrance and found the four leather-masked men waiting outside. "You belong to the Baron," intoned one in a hieratic voice.
Fu smiled. "We're just sightseers, friends. We don't even have anything valuable on us." He held his stick lightly by the middle, balanced casually over one shoulder.
"We don't steal," said one. "We've vowed two goats to Baron Samedi. You're it." With no more warning than that, they attacked.
If Thor had had to think about it, he would have died in the next second. The attack was so sudden, so unprovoked, so unbelievable , that the conscious part of his mind still had no idea what was happening. The unconscious part, though, had been conditioned by thousands of hours in the dojo , so that thought was unnecessary. He sidestepped the knife before his senses even registered its presence and his right hand shot out into the bump in the center of the mask, between the slanting eyepieces of the goggles. The deadly shomen-ate crushed the man's nose to a pulp, jerking his head backward. A second man was already swinging a chain overhand toward his head and Thor stepped inside its arc, blocking overhead with his left forearm as
"What's left," Fu went on, "is despair and envy."
"Despair I can understand," Thor commented, "but why envy?"
"That brings us back to holo programming. You saw some of this in your sampling today, but it pervades all of popular programming, not just the space-oriented series like Asteroids . Everywhere, the emphasis is on the doings and possessions of the absurdly rich. These people we see all around us here spend most of their day, vicariously, amid the surroundings of the filthy rich and they know that they'll never have access to a life like that. Worse, they can't even have the illusion that the rich and powerful are somehow superior to themselves. They see that those people are just jerks like everybody else."
"So what can they do?" Thor asked.
"They can vote," Fu said. "With any degree of solidarity, the unemployed or semi-employed underclass forms the most powerful voting bloc in any nation that has a popular vote at all. That's too much potential political power to just leave lying around unexploited. Earth First has figured a way to make use of them." He nodded to a group of men who had just entered the complex. They looked like factory workers just coming off shift from some light industry facility nearby. They wore coveralls with a company logo on the breast that Thor couldn't make out, but each wore another device on his back that was large enough to read from the second level; it was the symbol ©1.
"Now they're being told that it's the offworlders that're bleeding them," Fu said. "Precious tax money is going into expensive projects in space from which they derive no benefit. It's a stroke of genius, really."
"Why do you say that?" Opposite them on the same level, he saw a sign advertising a drug service which tailored its product to the body chemistry of the buyer.
"Well, because you can have great big demonstrations and mass rallies without ugly pogroms. After all, the people they're learning to hate are millions of klicks away."
Suddenly, Thor was profoundly depressed. The sheer immensity of the problem paralyzed the mind. "Come on," he said, "let's go."
"But there's lots more to see," Fu protested. "You haven't even gone inside one of the pain palaces yet."
"Not tonight," Thor said. "I'll come back later. I've had enough for now."
"It's a little too much to take in all at once," Fu agreed, leading the way back down to the entrance. "Rest up tomorrow and I'll take you to some other places. There's a religious revival over on Cahuenga that's been going on for three months. You have to see it to understand what despair is all about."
They walked back out through the littered entrance and found the four leather-masked men waiting outside. "You belong to the Baron," intoned one in a hieratic voice.
Fu smiled. "We're just sightseers, friends. We don't even have anything valuable on us." He held his stick lightly by the middle, balanced casually over one shoulder.
"We don't steal," said one. "We've vowed two goats to Baron Samedi. You're it." With no more warning than that, they attacked.
If Thor had had to think about it, he would have died in the next second. The attack was so sudden, so unprovoked, so unbelievable , that the conscious part of his mind still had no idea what was happening. The unconscious part, though, had been conditioned by thousands of hours in the dojo , so that thought was unnecessary. He sidestepped the knife before his senses even registered its presence and his right hand shot out into the bump in the center of the mask, between the slanting eyepieces of the goggles. The deadly shomen-ate crushed the man's nose to a pulp, jerking his head backward. A second man was already swinging a chain overhand toward his head and Thor stepped inside its arc, blocking overhead with his left forearm as
Similar Books
