Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand Read Online Free PDF Page B

out the particular frequencies it does. One of the two great poets who came in the second colonial ship to this world noted the phenomenon, worked out its parameters on an early computer, and said, in a beautiful poem, that this effect would define the lives of humans here as long as we stayed. I suppose he didn’t realize how fast there would be sandless cities all around the equator. You know, I learned the poem by heart when I was ten, but I never saw the actual thing itself until three months ago, when I took this transport and struck off from the population belt here towards the south pole. And now, though I remember the poem and the story about it, I can’t remember either the poet’s name or the poem’s title. Do you know –? But no, you wouldn’t know things like that. Not on this world. Still, it’s a beautiful thing to watch and realize that someoneelse, two hundred fifty years ago, watched it too; and thought it was beautiful.’
    And hours later she said:
    ‘This is crazy. This is more than crazy. It’s stupid! If they catch us, I don’t want to think about what’ll happen. What I want, you’re just not supposed to have, here. I never thought of our world, with its endless deserts and orange sky and multilayered equatorial cities and great canyons and underground waterways, as coy. But it is! It makes slaves, then says that individuals can’t own them, only institutions – because somehow institutions make slavery more humane! Well, I
want
a slave, my own slave, to do exactly what I want, the way I want it done, without question or complaint – a slave to do what
I
want to make
me
happy. The Yellows are going to win this coming election. I know it – everyone knows it! Well,
we’re
heading for Grey territory. We’ll hole up there for two weeks. After the election, during the resultant confusion in the Grey sectors, records will vanish, order will disappear, and who knows what moments of freedom might occur in the chaos or for how long they’ll hold stable. Happiness! Yours?’ She grinned at him. ‘Mine? No, not yours I guess. But if I could, I’d
make
you free – before I made you serve me! I really would. Only I can’t. So the only thing left is for you to make me free.’ She snorted. ‘Or happy. Is it the same thing?
Is
happiness slavery? That’s what they tell you at the Institute, isn’t it? Slavery is happiness. Accepting slavery, becoming a rat, is happiness. Well, I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it at all! And even though you’re a slave, I hope you learn that! Learn that from me. I swear, if I thought I could teach you that, I’d turn you loose this instant and be on my way. There
are
some things more important – than I am, to me. Nobody else believes me when I say it. Butit’s true. Do
you
believe me –? No, don’t answer. I don’t want you to say anything now.’
    Later she said:
    ‘I have this machine – have you ever heard of GI? General Information? Tell me: have you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well, I’m not surprised. It doesn’t really exist on this world. It does up on others, though. They’ve even got it on our larger moon. But they’ve legislated against it here, planetside. Oh, there’re other worlds where it’s common. Can you imagine? Living on a world where, if you want to know something – anything, anything at all! – all you have to do is
think
about it, and the answer pops into your head? That’s supposed to be how it works. Even our Free-Informationists are scared to go that far. They think we’d slide over into Cultural Fugue in a minute! Well, we just might anyway, the way this world rolls. But you see, I have something that does almost the same thing. It’s even more illegal than stealing you – they’ll call it theft, you know, if we’re ever found out. I had to come near killing three times to get it. And worlds with as many ways of killing the mind as this one has don’t take kindly to killing the body. Anyway, around the