do the job better than the wage slaves, shall we?’
When we’d finished serving lunch to the other passengers we took our own trays. I saw that she, like myself, was making to sit alone, so I asked her to join me. We talked as we ate.
It wasn’t polite to ask neighbours what they were doing, where they were going, and so on. You had to work around to it, and not pry if they didn’t open up.
‘Why did you tell me that thing about the old system?’ I asked.
‘At the moment,’ Suze said, ‘I’m a sociologist.’
I dragged up the unfamiliar word from old memories.
‘Someone who studies society?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, but there’s not much to study any more!’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Look around you.’ She waved a hand. ‘These days, you want to investigate society, and what do you find?’
It was a rhetorical question, but I really wanted to know her answer.
‘Well,’ she went on, ‘it’s all so obvious , so transparent. We all know how things work from the age of about five or so. You go and try to find out, and somebody will just tell you! And it’ll be true, there are no secrets, nothing going on behind the scenes. Because there are no scenes , know what I mean?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, thinking Ha! Little do you know, girl! ‘So what society do you study, if not our own?’
‘I study the old system,’ Suze said, ‘and I do learn interesting things. Sometimes I just can’t help telling people about them. And anyway, it’s a way of getting people to talk.’
I snorted. ‘Yeah, it’s a great line,’ I said. ‘Almost anything you’re doing, you can say to someone, “Did—you—know—that under the wages system, some people had to do this every day or starve to death ?” ’
She laughed at my mock-shocked tone and saucer eyes. For the next few minutes we vied to suggest some activity to which the statement didn’t apply, and found our resources of ribaldry and gruesomeness inadequate to the task.
‘All the same,’ she said when we’d given up, ‘it is fascinating in a way.’ She shot me a glance, as if unsure whether to go on. ‘Capitalism had a sort of … elegance about it. The trouble is, well, the old people, uh, no offence, aren’t very good at explaining it, because they hate it so much, and the old books …’ She sighed and shrugged. ‘They just don’t make sense . They have all these equations in them, like real science, but you look at the assumptions and you think, hey, wait a minute, that can’t be right, so how did it work? Anyway ,’ she went on, more firmly, ‘it’s the only interesting sociological question left.’ She looked out of the window, then leaned forward and spoke quietly. ‘That’s why I go to London,’ she confided. ‘To talk to people outside the Union.’
Then she leaned back, and looked at me as if defying me to be shocked, unsure that she hadn’t misjudged my broad-mindedness. I didn’t need to feign my response—I was pleased, and interested. We had, of course, a network of agents and contacts in the London area, and the old comrades could always be counted on—but my mission was too secret even for them. Nobody knew I was coming, or what I was looking for, although that information-leakage couldn’t be delayed much longer. I had expected to have to rely on hastily learned, and possibily outdated, background.
Now I had the possibility of a guide. This could be a stroke of luck! Or something else entirely, if I wanted to be paranoid about it. Her earlier comments about there being no secrets were too transparent to be some kind of double bluff; if she were involved in any secrets herself (other than
her—to some—distasteful interests) she would hardly have brought the subject up. And anyway, she was too young …
I studied her face, and tried to hide my second thoughts, my second-guessing of myself. You lose the knack for conspiracy, over the decades and centuries. The Division was not the Union, true
When we’d finished serving lunch to the other passengers we took our own trays. I saw that she, like myself, was making to sit alone, so I asked her to join me. We talked as we ate.
It wasn’t polite to ask neighbours what they were doing, where they were going, and so on. You had to work around to it, and not pry if they didn’t open up.
‘Why did you tell me that thing about the old system?’ I asked.
‘At the moment,’ Suze said, ‘I’m a sociologist.’
I dragged up the unfamiliar word from old memories.
‘Someone who studies society?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, but there’s not much to study any more!’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Look around you.’ She waved a hand. ‘These days, you want to investigate society, and what do you find?’
It was a rhetorical question, but I really wanted to know her answer.
‘Well,’ she went on, ‘it’s all so obvious , so transparent. We all know how things work from the age of about five or so. You go and try to find out, and somebody will just tell you! And it’ll be true, there are no secrets, nothing going on behind the scenes. Because there are no scenes , know what I mean?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, thinking Ha! Little do you know, girl! ‘So what society do you study, if not our own?’
‘I study the old system,’ Suze said, ‘and I do learn interesting things. Sometimes I just can’t help telling people about them. And anyway, it’s a way of getting people to talk.’
I snorted. ‘Yeah, it’s a great line,’ I said. ‘Almost anything you’re doing, you can say to someone, “Did—you—know—that under the wages system, some people had to do this every day or starve to death ?” ’
She laughed at my mock-shocked tone and saucer eyes. For the next few minutes we vied to suggest some activity to which the statement didn’t apply, and found our resources of ribaldry and gruesomeness inadequate to the task.
‘All the same,’ she said when we’d given up, ‘it is fascinating in a way.’ She shot me a glance, as if unsure whether to go on. ‘Capitalism had a sort of … elegance about it. The trouble is, well, the old people, uh, no offence, aren’t very good at explaining it, because they hate it so much, and the old books …’ She sighed and shrugged. ‘They just don’t make sense . They have all these equations in them, like real science, but you look at the assumptions and you think, hey, wait a minute, that can’t be right, so how did it work? Anyway ,’ she went on, more firmly, ‘it’s the only interesting sociological question left.’ She looked out of the window, then leaned forward and spoke quietly. ‘That’s why I go to London,’ she confided. ‘To talk to people outside the Union.’
Then she leaned back, and looked at me as if defying me to be shocked, unsure that she hadn’t misjudged my broad-mindedness. I didn’t need to feign my response—I was pleased, and interested. We had, of course, a network of agents and contacts in the London area, and the old comrades could always be counted on—but my mission was too secret even for them. Nobody knew I was coming, or what I was looking for, although that information-leakage couldn’t be delayed much longer. I had expected to have to rely on hastily learned, and possibily outdated, background.
Now I had the possibility of a guide. This could be a stroke of luck! Or something else entirely, if I wanted to be paranoid about it. Her earlier comments about there being no secrets were too transparent to be some kind of double bluff; if she were involved in any secrets herself (other than
her—to some—distasteful interests) she would hardly have brought the subject up. And anyway, she was too young …
I studied her face, and tried to hide my second thoughts, my second-guessing of myself. You lose the knack for conspiracy, over the decades and centuries. The Division was not the Union, true
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