Read Online Manshape by John Brunner - Free Book Online

means it. But that doesn’t mean he’s sorry for not telling me-rather, he’s sorry it didn’t occur to him to tell me. He never gives enough weight to the possibility that other people’s lives might be as important as his own.
    “How long ago?” she challenged.
    “Oh—not more than an hour, I guess.”
    “And you’re set to leave already. It must be very urgent!” She could not prevent her tone from sounding sarcastic.
    “Well, kind of urgent, I guess. But after all I am finished on Ipewell. The culture-interface is ready; the Bridge programme is ready; what else is there? It was all rather easy because the population is small and homogeneous.”
    Small? There are scores of millions of people here! Even if the people aren’t counted by the billions, as Earth’s are, surely—
    But a pantologist’s universe could not be the same as hers—or she would be one!
    For the first time it crossed her mind how terrible it might be to inhabit a cosmos where people were as anonymous, interchangeable, and ultimately dull as the computers must find them when wrapping and packaging them for interstellar transit. Hans had been tender to her, affectionate, physically attentive; there had remained a barrier on the mental level which in this moment she knew she was destined never to breach.
    She said dully, “I see. So what are you going to do next?”
    “They killed Jacob Chen on Azrael when he was trying to get to grips with the dynamic of the local culture. They’re sending me to finish his work. It’s a great honour.” He finished storing the microbooksand began double-checking what the machinery had done with his recording crystals.
    Fay closed her eyes for a moment. On the interior of her eyelids she seemed to see herself reflected as others would see her: indisputably lovely, with flawlessly tanned skin, an excellently proportioned figure, violet eyes that contrasted admirably with her curly fair hair… Hans had said what other men had said, in his own detached weighing-the-evidence fashion which somehow made the statement that much more sincere and precious. He had said, “You are beautiful, you know.” And so, she had thought, was he!
    But now when she looked at him again she realised he was according her no attention beyond the minimum that anyone deserved.
    She tried one last time to engage his full attention. Touching his arm, she said, “Hans—look at me!”
    Before he smiled his answer, though, he had to prepare himself as she had often seen him do before when arguing with the computers: it is necessary for me to be distracted, and therefore I will do it, but out
of
duty, not from choice…
    It had been in her mind to kiss him, cheeks and eyelids first, then fiercely on the mouth with the intention of reawakening what they had shared. She abandoned the idea, and contented herself with a mere peck.
    He… tasted wrong.
    “That,” she improvised, “was sort of to say good-bye.”
    “Maybe it won’t be goodbye.” He gave her hand a comforting squeeze. “Don’t assume they’re going to kill me, too!”
    The implied reproach recalled her to the real world. Like everyone else she knew, she was aware of Chen’s status as a pantologist He had been a pupil of thevery first, a link with the original conception of the idea which had been elevated into an article of faith, the belief that there would always be humans who could out-argue their machines.
    She ought to be told what had happened to draw Hans away.
    “What went wrong?” she said at last, letting go his hand.
    All the means which would have enabled him to project the details to her, using the ship’s resources, had by now been stored in six neat cases. Rather than unpack them again, he recounted the story in bald words.
    “I see,” Fay said at last. “What appeals to you is being sent for to cope with a problem that killed Chen. All that matters in your life is another challenge, and preferably one that someone else has been defeated