Read Online Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail by Jack L. Chalker - Free Book Online
Authors: Jack L. Chalker
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, Science Fiction - General, Fiction - Science Fiction, American, Science fiction; American
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totalitarian society that believed in the basic goodness of man to a very totalitarian society run by men and women who were convinced that humans would always, given a choice, do the wrong thing. Therefore, a society tightly and rigidly controlled, in which all the rules were known and posted and no violations were tolerated, was Ypsir’s new vision. It turned out to be not nearly as new -as he thought, but a very old idea indeed.
There were less than thirteen million Medusans, scattered around the so-called temperate zones in small, enclosed cities and towns linked by magne-bus and a freight service using the same tracks. Electric power was generated basically by geothermal wells, and the location and size of the cities were determined by just how much power was available. Medusa controlled the Diamond’s freighter fleet, digging raw materials out of the mineral-rich moons of the next nearest neighbor out-system, the great ringed gas giant Momrath. These were unloaded at specific freight terminals strategically located around the planet so that the cities could be most economically served. The reason for cities like Gray Basin was not only their large geothermal sources of power, but also because, being so far north, magne-tracks could be laid over the permanently frozen ocean to the north and thus connect continents. All travel was available, but it was expensive, subject to frequent nasty weather conditions, and not practical for heavy freight.
Some of the cities were quite large, but most had between fifty and a hundred thousand people. All were self-contained, and all nonequatorial ones were, like Gray Basin, dug in rather than built on the surface; and each one specialized in just a few industries. Gray Basin, for example, specialized in transportation and related industries on the surface. All of the magne-busses, some of the freight containers, and much of the buried guidance track were made here. One town built computers—a surprise to me, since I’d assumed that such things would be strictly prohibited by the Confederacy guardians. A few specialized in food production and distribution, mostly synthetics and food imported from Lilith and Charon. It was true, as Sugra had told us, that we could eat almost anything—yet, as Kabaye was quick to point out, the fact that we could eat human flesh did not mean that we preferred it to steak. Being able to eat something was not the same as either liking it or enjoying it.
Clearly Medusa’s economy worked closely with that of Cerberus, next in-system. The Cerberans helped design the products Medusa made, and handled just about all the computer software, as well as taking raw materials like basic steel, plastics, and the like we turned out and making things that were of use on their and other worlds but not here. For example, the very concept of a speedboat was ridiculous on Medusa, but on the Cerberan water world speedboats were in great demand.
The factories and industries of Medusa were basically automated, but there was a job for every human. Natives went to state schools from ages four to twelve, then were examined in a number of areas including aptitudes and intelligence potential and placed in the particular training track for which they were most suited. This was a bit more ponderous than the Confederacy’s method of breeding you to your job, but it served the same purpose.
Also contrary to Confederacy custom, families were maintained for those early years, although they were often nontraditional and always “state-determined. Group marriages and group families were the rule, partly because of the need to bear and raise children and partly in the name of “efficiency,” a word of which I was already tiring.
There were forty-four wage steps, or grades possible, although the top four grades were strictly top government personnel and there was only one Grade 44, naturally.
The easiest way to think of the society, I reflected, was as if everybody—every
There were less than thirteen million Medusans, scattered around the so-called temperate zones in small, enclosed cities and towns linked by magne-bus and a freight service using the same tracks. Electric power was generated basically by geothermal wells, and the location and size of the cities were determined by just how much power was available. Medusa controlled the Diamond’s freighter fleet, digging raw materials out of the mineral-rich moons of the next nearest neighbor out-system, the great ringed gas giant Momrath. These were unloaded at specific freight terminals strategically located around the planet so that the cities could be most economically served. The reason for cities like Gray Basin was not only their large geothermal sources of power, but also because, being so far north, magne-tracks could be laid over the permanently frozen ocean to the north and thus connect continents. All travel was available, but it was expensive, subject to frequent nasty weather conditions, and not practical for heavy freight.
Some of the cities were quite large, but most had between fifty and a hundred thousand people. All were self-contained, and all nonequatorial ones were, like Gray Basin, dug in rather than built on the surface; and each one specialized in just a few industries. Gray Basin, for example, specialized in transportation and related industries on the surface. All of the magne-busses, some of the freight containers, and much of the buried guidance track were made here. One town built computers—a surprise to me, since I’d assumed that such things would be strictly prohibited by the Confederacy guardians. A few specialized in food production and distribution, mostly synthetics and food imported from Lilith and Charon. It was true, as Sugra had told us, that we could eat almost anything—yet, as Kabaye was quick to point out, the fact that we could eat human flesh did not mean that we preferred it to steak. Being able to eat something was not the same as either liking it or enjoying it.
Clearly Medusa’s economy worked closely with that of Cerberus, next in-system. The Cerberans helped design the products Medusa made, and handled just about all the computer software, as well as taking raw materials like basic steel, plastics, and the like we turned out and making things that were of use on their and other worlds but not here. For example, the very concept of a speedboat was ridiculous on Medusa, but on the Cerberan water world speedboats were in great demand.
The factories and industries of Medusa were basically automated, but there was a job for every human. Natives went to state schools from ages four to twelve, then were examined in a number of areas including aptitudes and intelligence potential and placed in the particular training track for which they were most suited. This was a bit more ponderous than the Confederacy’s method of breeding you to your job, but it served the same purpose.
Also contrary to Confederacy custom, families were maintained for those early years, although they were often nontraditional and always “state-determined. Group marriages and group families were the rule, partly because of the need to bear and raise children and partly in the name of “efficiency,” a word of which I was already tiring.
There were forty-four wage steps, or grades possible, although the top four grades were strictly top government personnel and there was only one Grade 44, naturally.
The easiest way to think of the society, I reflected, was as if everybody—every
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