good writer but I have to keep looking up archaic expressions, especially the dialect: “Dere was a mug come in d’ place d’ odder day wid an idear he was goin’ t’ own d’ place. Hully gee!” (It took me a long stare to figure out that last one was a euphemism for “Holy God!”)
18 Sept. I was a little nervous, but the Crane class went pretty well. Schaumann assigns each author to a student, in rotation (so I won’t have to do it again for a month). The student gives a half-hour talk about the work and the author; then Schaumann takes over. You aren’t graded onthe talk. Schaumann says he teaches that way because he’s lazy, but the real reason is to give himself insurance, providing both a dialectic base for his questions and one sure victim.
After religion I went down to Eastriver to meet Keyes. Eastriver is a small city in itself, built over the East River about twenty years ago by a group of real estate developers. The developers went bankrupt and the courts still haven’t sorted out the mess. So the place has a temporary, unfinished quality to it. No big buildings; whole blocks of empty space. Some places the foamsteel construction of the bridge itself is only covered by safety gratings. You can watch the river traffic toiling by under your feet.
I met Keyes at a place called the Grapeseed Revenge. It sits in one corner of a building that evidently will someday be a warehouse, taking up maybe one-twentieth of the shell’s volume. The acoustics are incredible.
No revolutionary cabal would dare meet in a place like this; it looks too much the part. The only light comes from a candle on each table. The chairs and tables are random mismatched castoffs. Huddled groups talk in low tones. I expected to see pictures of Kowalski and Lenin on the walls.
Keyes found me while I was still groping blindly through the darkness, before my eyes adjusted to the candlelight. She led me to a table (an old door on legs, actually) and introduced me to three friends.
One of them did look like a revolutionary. His name was Will, no last name or line name offered. His face looked small, framed by an unruly cloud of hair and beard; he was slight, bony, quick-moving. He was wearing laborer’s overalls (but when I asked what he did he said “sit and think”). The other two were students, Lillian Sterne and Mohammed Twelve. They treated one another with casual affection, like long-time lovers. Lillian is small, blond, and pale as a Yorker; Mohammed is big and black. He was surprised, and pleased, that I knew how important the name Twelve was in African history. His great-grandfather’s brother. That was a bloody time.
I went through the same sort of quizzing that Keyes had done, mostly from Will. He was didactic and hostile, but intelligent. When he talked, all the others listened carefully. He was obviously used to leading.
I’m afraid I was guilty of coloring my responses—notreally lying, but feeding him what he wanted to hear, pushing him. For instance:
Will: Suppose one or both of the Coordinators were dishonest—
Me: They’re politicians.
Will: Right. What stops them from making vast personal fortunes from import and export?
Me: Ten billion dollars a week goes through their hands.
Will: And they have the final say as to suppliers and customers, on Earth.
Me: They oversee the Import-Export Board.
Will: I wonder how much someone would pay for, say, the franchise on oxygen.
Me: Hydrogen; we make our own oxygen. They’d pay plenty, I’m sure.
And so forth. What I didn’t say was, for instance, no actual money changes hands for hydrogen; it’s a straight barter with U.S. Steel. There’s no doubt a Coordinator could skim off millions—but what could you do with it? Count it? You’d have to go to Earth or Devon’s World to spend it, and people would probably find out, since ex-Coordinators automatically join the Privy Council. They’d miss your vote.
(The idea of personal wealth certainly
18 Sept. I was a little nervous, but the Crane class went pretty well. Schaumann assigns each author to a student, in rotation (so I won’t have to do it again for a month). The student gives a half-hour talk about the work and the author; then Schaumann takes over. You aren’t graded onthe talk. Schaumann says he teaches that way because he’s lazy, but the real reason is to give himself insurance, providing both a dialectic base for his questions and one sure victim.
After religion I went down to Eastriver to meet Keyes. Eastriver is a small city in itself, built over the East River about twenty years ago by a group of real estate developers. The developers went bankrupt and the courts still haven’t sorted out the mess. So the place has a temporary, unfinished quality to it. No big buildings; whole blocks of empty space. Some places the foamsteel construction of the bridge itself is only covered by safety gratings. You can watch the river traffic toiling by under your feet.
I met Keyes at a place called the Grapeseed Revenge. It sits in one corner of a building that evidently will someday be a warehouse, taking up maybe one-twentieth of the shell’s volume. The acoustics are incredible.
No revolutionary cabal would dare meet in a place like this; it looks too much the part. The only light comes from a candle on each table. The chairs and tables are random mismatched castoffs. Huddled groups talk in low tones. I expected to see pictures of Kowalski and Lenin on the walls.
Keyes found me while I was still groping blindly through the darkness, before my eyes adjusted to the candlelight. She led me to a table (an old door on legs, actually) and introduced me to three friends.
One of them did look like a revolutionary. His name was Will, no last name or line name offered. His face looked small, framed by an unruly cloud of hair and beard; he was slight, bony, quick-moving. He was wearing laborer’s overalls (but when I asked what he did he said “sit and think”). The other two were students, Lillian Sterne and Mohammed Twelve. They treated one another with casual affection, like long-time lovers. Lillian is small, blond, and pale as a Yorker; Mohammed is big and black. He was surprised, and pleased, that I knew how important the name Twelve was in African history. His great-grandfather’s brother. That was a bloody time.
I went through the same sort of quizzing that Keyes had done, mostly from Will. He was didactic and hostile, but intelligent. When he talked, all the others listened carefully. He was obviously used to leading.
I’m afraid I was guilty of coloring my responses—notreally lying, but feeding him what he wanted to hear, pushing him. For instance:
Will: Suppose one or both of the Coordinators were dishonest—
Me: They’re politicians.
Will: Right. What stops them from making vast personal fortunes from import and export?
Me: Ten billion dollars a week goes through their hands.
Will: And they have the final say as to suppliers and customers, on Earth.
Me: They oversee the Import-Export Board.
Will: I wonder how much someone would pay for, say, the franchise on oxygen.
Me: Hydrogen; we make our own oxygen. They’d pay plenty, I’m sure.
And so forth. What I didn’t say was, for instance, no actual money changes hands for hydrogen; it’s a straight barter with U.S. Steel. There’s no doubt a Coordinator could skim off millions—but what could you do with it? Count it? You’d have to go to Earth or Devon’s World to spend it, and people would probably find out, since ex-Coordinators automatically join the Privy Council. They’d miss your vote.
(The idea of personal wealth certainly
Similar Books
