Clone, p.4
Clone, page 4
‘Another bloody monkey-lover! No wonder the country’s on its bloody knees! You ginks are a bloody disgrace to the human race!’
Alvin was puzzled by this exchange and would gladly have prolonged the discussion had not Norbert drawn him forcibly away up the compartment and installed him in a seat well out of casual conversation range. Having placed their luggage and his hat on the overhead rack, the chimp sat down and showed Alvin how to secure his lap belt. Then he extracted a well-thumbed copy of Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Dying from his pocket and settled down to read.
Alvin looked about him with interest. The seats, which were rather similar in design to those of a 20th Century jet air liner, were grouped in fours round small tables. Those opposite to his and Norbert’s were occupied by two elderly ladies, one of whom now leant across and stage-whispered to Alvin: ‘I think it was most commendable of you to speak up for your friend like that.’
Alvin blushed. ’Oh well,’ he said, ’that gentleman wasn’t being at all fair. After all, Norbert’s our branch leader of the A.T.S.W.’
’Is he indeed? Did you hear that, Peggy?’
Norbert turned over a page and frowned.
‘Doctor Pfizier says I couldn’t be in better hands,’ Alvin informed them. ‘Norbert’s taking me down to Croydon. Do you know Croydon?’
’Oh yes. We live in Wimbledon. It’s very close. By the way, my name’s Margaret.’
‘Mine’s Alvin.’
‘Well, Alvin, and what are you and Norbert going to do in Croydon?’
‘We’re going to see Professor Poynter about my libido,’
A buzzer sounded in the compartment and, a moment later, the landscape had begun to drift murmurously away past the porthole. The woman named Peggy produced a round metal dish which she placed on the table before her. ‘I think we still have time for another game, Margaret. I wonder if Alvin and his friend would care to join us?’
‘Yes, do,’ urged Margaret. ‘It’s so much more fun with more than two players.’
‘All right,’ said Alvin. ‘How do you play?’
Peggy materialized five coloured dice from somewhere about her person, set the inner surface of the little dish revolving with a touch of her finger and dropped the dice on to it one by one. They skipped and hopped and finally came to rest. ’Twenty-one and two doubles,’ she announced. ‘I’ll just try the odd one for a full house.’
She removed four of the dice from the dish on the table, set the inner surface revolving again and dropped in the remaining cube. When it came to rest she clicked her tongue in annoyance. ‘Not very good,’ she said. ‘Your turn, Margaret.’
Her companion collected up the dice and repeated the procedure, ’Oh dear, oh dear,’ she sighed. ’Only eighteen and a miserable pair. I’m sure Alvin will beat that easily.’
Alvin did. He scored twenty-four and a triple five.
‘Bravo!’ applauded Margaret. ‘And now Norbert.’
Norbert looked up from his book, blinked thoughtfully, and asked to be excused. The two ladies tried hard to persuade him but he remained politely adamant.
‘Well, that’s one to Alvin, then,’ said Peggy and from her purse she extracted a £10 piece which she passed across to the clone. Margaret did likewise. Alvin protested but they both laughed and assured him they would soon win it back.
Alvin won the next game too. And the next. ’Oh, you’re a lucky one and no mistake,’ chuckled Margaret. ‘No wonder Norbert wouldn’t play with you.’
Norbert smiled a trifle grimly and said nothing.
But as the shuttle approached the outskirts of the city Alvin’s luck began to change. His scores were still high but somehow theirs were just a little bit higher. Then he won again. At that point, on Peggy’s suggestion, the stakes were raised to £20 a throw. Norbert cleared his throat and tried to catch Alvin’s eye, but without success.
In no time at all it seemed, Alvin had parted with the first of his two months’ pay and would, no doubt, have parted with the second also had not Norbert, in standing up and reaching for the overhead rack, somehow managed to dislodge Alvin’s grip. It dropped fair and square on to the gaming dish and scattered the dice across the floor of the compartment. The language of the two old ladies surprised Alvin who rebuked Norbert for his clumsiness. By the time the dice had been retrieved the shuttle had whispered into the Paddington Terminal and the passengers were alighting.
The last Alvin saw of Margaret and Peggy they appeared to be heading towards the Terminal buffet accompanied, strangely enough, by the very man who had been so rude about Norbert. He pointed out this curious coincidence to the chimp who merely shrugged glumly and told Alvin he had been taken for a ride. ’That game was fixed,’ he said. ‘Some sort of magnetic trick, I suppose. I tried to warn you.’
Alvin was deeply shocked. ‘You mean those two nice old ladies were cheating me? I don’t believe it!’
‘Suit yourself, son,’ said Norbert, ‘but if I hadn’t dropped that grip when I did it’s a safe bet you’d have been cleaned right out by now. How much did they milk you for?’
’Two hundred pounds,’ said Alvin sadly. ‘Are you saying that you dropped my bag on the table on purpose?’
Norbert chuckled. ‘Pity I didn’t think of doing it a bit sooner, wasn’t it? Still, maybe it’ll have taught you a lesson. Come on now, let’s go and find out about that Croydon connection. And for Pete’s sake, Alvin, keep your purse zipped into your inside pocket.’
They discovered that the electronic connection indicator was out of action, so Norbert sought out a fellow anthropoid on the Expressway staff and put the question to him. The uniformed chimp regarded Alvin curiously. ‘Who’s the pinkie?’ he asked Norbert. ‘Friend of yours?’
‘He’s a good lad,’ said Norbert.
‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ said Alvin and held out his hand.
The chimp rolled his eyes. ‘Hey, d’you want t’get me the sack!’ he hissed, and turning back to Norbert said: ‘Just what kind of a goon is this?’
‘He’s a bit simple,’ said Norbert, ‘but one of the best. He doesn’t mean any harm.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ said the other doubtfully. ‘Well, what can I do for you, friend?’
Norbert explained again that they were anxious to get to Croydon and were wondering whether they should take a cab.
‘You’ll be lucky,’ grunted the chimp. ‘Don’t you know there’s a strike on?’
‘No,’ said Norbert.
‘Well, there is. So I reckon your best bet would be to take the flow-way to Baker Street, hoof it up to Oxford Street, then round Hyde Park and try for a Suburban from the Kensington Terminus. Hang on a minute. Hey, Charlie, how’s the South Suburban?’
‘It was running this morning, Mose,’ replied another ape approaching them. ‘’Bout two an hour, I think. What’s the problem?’
‘These two yokels want to get to Croydon,’
Charlie pushed back his cap and scratched his head. ’Flowway to Baker Street then dahn t’the Dilly.’
‘Not Kensington?’
‘Dilly’s safer, Mose. They’re knockin’ em off in daylight now rahnd the Park. Up to you, of course. Me, I’d have the Dilly.’ ’Thanks,’ said Norbert. ‘Come on, Alvin.’
‘Good luck,’ grinned Mose. ‘Rather you than me.’
They headed towards the main cloaca. ‘Now you stick close to me, son,’ instructed Norbert. ‘If we get separated down here, you get off at Baker Street and wait for me there. Have you got that?’
Alvin nodded. ‘Baker Street’, he repeated dutifully.
Norbert tugged his hat down over one eye, humped his shoulders and barged a way into the dense crowd which was struggling for standing room on the articulated roadway. Alvin clutched his grip and plunged after him. Within seconds they were being sucked down into one of the huge tiled tunnels, two fragments of a solid tide of human and anthropoid bodies which was being swept inexorably towards the heart of the city.
There was no problem about keeping their balance. The passengers were crammed so tightly together it would have been physically impossible to fall over. Electronic music, interspersed with raucous commercials, twanged and hummed through the fetid air. Somewhere ahead a woman began to shriek hysterically, but none of the passengers surrounding Alvin appeared in the least perturbed. Their eyes had the filmy, glazed look he had seen before only in the dead fish he sometimes found floating belly-upwards in Lake Tring.
Eventually a vast illuminated sign loomed up to inform them that they were approaching Baker Street. Norbert grabbed Alvin and began squirming his way towards the edge of the flow-way. He need not have bothered. A minute later the whole crowd surged off the track sweeping them up to the turnstiles whether they wanted to go there or not. Norbert thrust the plastic tags of their travel warrants into the scanner and then they were through.
Alvin drew what seemed to be his first breath for an hour. ’Is it always like that in the city, Norbert?’ he enquired with a shudder.
’The Terminal links are the worst,’ said Norbert, ’specially now there’s a cab strike on. I daresay you’d get used to it in time.’
‘But I’ve never seen so many people. Where do they all come from?’
‘Well, there’s over 50 million in Inner London for a start,’ said Norbert restoring the travel warrants to his wallet and placing the wallet in an inside compartment of his brief case. ‘And another 50 million come in from the suburbs every day.’
‘But why don’t they live in the country like we do?’
Norbert shrugged. ‘Land’s too precious, son, that’s why. The other reason is they couldn’t. Haven’t you ever wondered why we never see more than a couple of hundred up at the lakes?’
‘No,’ said Alvin who hadn’t.
‘Well, people are conditioned to like what they’ve got. They have to be.’
‘Conditioned to like this?’ said Alvin, gazing around him at the seething multitude. ‘How can they be?’
‘Maybe not this particularly,’ said Norbert, ‘but to living in the super cities. How else could you fit 3 50 millions into an island the size of ours?’ He zipped up his case, locked it, and motioned with his head towards one of the street exits. ‘Come on,’ he grinned, ‘let’s go and find ourselves something to eat.’
SEVEN
They stepped out into the canyon that was Baker Street. Although it was still the middle of the afternoon the street lighting was already full on. Only on the very brightest of days could sufficient sunlight penetrate the stratospheric haze and filter down through the cab grid lattice which festooned the towering residential blocks to illuminate the roadway far below.
The first three eating houses they tried all displayed ‘N.A.’ (No Anthropoids) or ‘H.O.’ (Humans Only) notices in their windows, but the fourth proclaimed itself an open house and they went in.
It was one of a chain of middle-grade, self-service eateries called ‘Horn of Plenty. They were to be found in all the Supercities under their motif of a buxom Ceres ladling an inexhaustible supply of appetizing goodies out of a giant shell. Within, above a battery of chromium lockers, mouthwatering, coloured stereoscopic images invited the hungry multitude to slot in their £10 pieces and help themselves to health. Alvin selected roast chicken with mushrooms and French fries. Norbert opted for ‘Vegetarian’s Delite’. Both turned out to be processed protein staple, artificially flavoured and coloured, and shaped to bear some crude resemblance to their remote ancestors.
The two travellers carried their purchases across to a vacant table and sat down. No sooner had they done so than faint, convivial sounds of eating and drinking seemed to enwrap them like mist: the tinkle of glassware and cutlery; anticipatory rustling of paper napkins; the crack of crisp breadsticks being broken; little ’oohs’, ‘ahs’, and ‘urns’ of gustatory pleasure; and all interspersed with tiny, genteel, but unmistakable, sighs and burps of the well-fed.
Since all the food was in fact served in compartmented plastic trays and the only implements supplied were a solitary plastic spoon apiece, the management had elected to reinforce the bon-viveur illusion by triggering sonics to the seats and releasing minute amounts of selected pheromones through the ventilators.
Alvin was so. intrigued that he stood up again only to discover that by so doing he had initiated a further automatic process whereby his half of the tabletop began sliding into the wall carrying his tray with it. He sat down again just in time to retrieve it and to appreciate the force of the warning printed round the rim of his tray: ‘Customers are respectfully requested not to vacate their seats during the course of their meal’
When Norbert had chomped his way stolidly through the last of his viridescent lettuce-type salad leaves he laid down his spoon, wiped his lips with his handkerchief and said: ‘I think we might as well walk up to the Park. If we find the Suburbans aren’t running, we’ll still have plenty of time to get down to Piccadilly and try from there.’
‘All right,’ agreed Alvin. ‘Whatever you say.’
Norbert inserted the tip of a prosthetic thumb into his mouth and delicately dislodged a morsel of synthetic beetroot from his palate. ‘Doctor Pfizier told you why we’re taking you to the M.O.P., did he?’
‘Because of my libido,’ said Alvin. ‘Do you know what that is?’
‘Mating urge,’ grunted Norbert.
’Oh. Is that bad?’
‘We-1-1,’ said the chimp judiciously, ‘I suppose it might be. If you let it.’
‘Have you had it, Norbert?’
Norbert chuckled. ‘All that’s way behind me now, lad. I leave it to the youngsters. More important things to worry about. Mind you, I don’t say there weren’t times…’ and he slipped into one of those thoughtful silences that were so familiar to Alvin.
‘Doctor Somervell seemed to think I had immature sexual fantasies,’ remarked Alvin, sucking the pseudo-flesh off a plastic wishbone and laying it back tidily on his tray. ’That was after I told her about the girl I saw yesterday. Before she made me take advantage of her.’
Norbert surfaced abruptly from his reverie. ‘Who did what, lad?’
Alvin blinked. ‘Doctor Somervell did. I’m sure she meant it kindly though.’
‘What happened?’
‘I’m not really sure,’ confessed Alvin. ‘I couldn’t see very well.’
‘She turned the light out?’
’Oh no,’ said Alvin. ‘It all sort of happened under her clothes.’
‘But you must have done something, lad?’
‘No, I didn’t, Norbert. She did it all. Honestly.’
‘But you must—well, it doesn’t really matter. How did Doctor Pfizier get to hear of it?’
’Oh he came in when she was sitting on top of me.’
Norbert who was not a powerful visualizer in the normal way found the demands of this particular scene almost overwhelming. ‘Holy gorilla!’ he murmured, which was the strongest epithet he ever allowed himself.
Alvin spooned in the last of his French fries and washed them down with synthetic grape juice. ‘Do you suppose Professor Poynter will want to do that too, Norbert?’
‘I daresay she’ll be prepared to take your word for it,’ said the chimp. ‘Now if you’ve finished we’d better be on our way.’ They descended once more into the street and found the sidewalk thronged with curious bystanders all gaping at some sort of parade which was passing down Baker Street towards Marble Arch. Since neither Alvin nor Norbert was particularly tall, all they could discern of the procession were the wobbling placards carried by the marchers. These seemed to embrace such a wide spectrum of concern from the ultraviolet of ‘freedom of choice!’ to the infra-red of ‘votes for apes!’ that Norbert was moved to enquire of a spectator what the demonstration was about. ‘Hampstead and Highgate Protestors Rally,’ he was told.
When five minutes had passed and still the procession showed no signs of coming to an end, Norbert had a sudden inspiration. Pulling Alvin with him by the arm, he squeezed his way through to the front of the crowd. Seizing the first opportune gap in the ranks he stepped boldly into the parade immediately behind a tall, thin, balding man of indeterminate age who was holding aloft a placard which read: ‘crewys road anti-vasectomy league’. His companion, as tall and gangling as he was, though differentiated by a sparse beard, carried a similar sign inscribed: ‘save our sperms!’ Norbert lifted his hat solemnly to them both and earned himself a friendly smile of welcome.
‘First class turn out, isn’t it?’ observed the beardless standard bearer. ‘You with the V.F.A. crowd?’
Norbert nodded and winked at Alvin.
‘I believe they’re up ahead somewhere,’ said the beard. ‘I daresay you might get through to them if you tried.’
Norbert shook his head to signify that he was quite happy where he was, whereupon the beardless one glanced back over his ranks and cried: ‘Right! All together now! One, two, three! Balls! Balls! We need balls …Balls! Balls! We need balls … Balls! Balls! We need balls!…’
Alvin and Norbert found themselves chanting with the rest, their heels drumming a heart-warming rhythm from the compo-surfaced roadway. Like errant snowflakes a few shreds of torn-up paper fluttered down from the canyon walls far above their heads, metamorphosing into brilliant multicoloured butterflies as they slid and paused and twirled above the rainbow neon signs which advertised the dream Arcades of Portman Square. ‘BallsJ’ howled Alvin, his innocent blue eyes glittering with the happy excitement of his new-found solidarity, and ‘Balls/’ thundered Norbert doffing his hat left and right to all and sundry, ‘Balls! Balls! We need balls/’
They swung round the corner into Oxford Street and saw ahead of them the narrow crack that was the sky broadening out and deepening into something almost approaching blue over the fringes of Hyde Park. Four hundred yards ahead the banners of the procession leaders scooped up the exhausted sunbeams and battered them like shuttlecocks from one to another as they snaked around Marble Arch and into the Park. From the sidewalks the massed onlookers cheered derisively or just stared apathetically, while the white helmets of Security Guards bobbed like ping-pong balls as they cantered up and down the line on their electric prancers, their white stun probes couched like lances and their red and white gas pistols bouncing against their hips.
Alvin was puzzled by this exchange and would gladly have prolonged the discussion had not Norbert drawn him forcibly away up the compartment and installed him in a seat well out of casual conversation range. Having placed their luggage and his hat on the overhead rack, the chimp sat down and showed Alvin how to secure his lap belt. Then he extracted a well-thumbed copy of Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Dying from his pocket and settled down to read.
Alvin looked about him with interest. The seats, which were rather similar in design to those of a 20th Century jet air liner, were grouped in fours round small tables. Those opposite to his and Norbert’s were occupied by two elderly ladies, one of whom now leant across and stage-whispered to Alvin: ‘I think it was most commendable of you to speak up for your friend like that.’
Alvin blushed. ’Oh well,’ he said, ’that gentleman wasn’t being at all fair. After all, Norbert’s our branch leader of the A.T.S.W.’
’Is he indeed? Did you hear that, Peggy?’
Norbert turned over a page and frowned.
‘Doctor Pfizier says I couldn’t be in better hands,’ Alvin informed them. ‘Norbert’s taking me down to Croydon. Do you know Croydon?’
’Oh yes. We live in Wimbledon. It’s very close. By the way, my name’s Margaret.’
‘Mine’s Alvin.’
‘Well, Alvin, and what are you and Norbert going to do in Croydon?’
‘We’re going to see Professor Poynter about my libido,’
A buzzer sounded in the compartment and, a moment later, the landscape had begun to drift murmurously away past the porthole. The woman named Peggy produced a round metal dish which she placed on the table before her. ‘I think we still have time for another game, Margaret. I wonder if Alvin and his friend would care to join us?’
‘Yes, do,’ urged Margaret. ‘It’s so much more fun with more than two players.’
‘All right,’ said Alvin. ‘How do you play?’
Peggy materialized five coloured dice from somewhere about her person, set the inner surface of the little dish revolving with a touch of her finger and dropped the dice on to it one by one. They skipped and hopped and finally came to rest. ’Twenty-one and two doubles,’ she announced. ‘I’ll just try the odd one for a full house.’
She removed four of the dice from the dish on the table, set the inner surface revolving again and dropped in the remaining cube. When it came to rest she clicked her tongue in annoyance. ‘Not very good,’ she said. ‘Your turn, Margaret.’
Her companion collected up the dice and repeated the procedure, ’Oh dear, oh dear,’ she sighed. ’Only eighteen and a miserable pair. I’m sure Alvin will beat that easily.’
Alvin did. He scored twenty-four and a triple five.
‘Bravo!’ applauded Margaret. ‘And now Norbert.’
Norbert looked up from his book, blinked thoughtfully, and asked to be excused. The two ladies tried hard to persuade him but he remained politely adamant.
‘Well, that’s one to Alvin, then,’ said Peggy and from her purse she extracted a £10 piece which she passed across to the clone. Margaret did likewise. Alvin protested but they both laughed and assured him they would soon win it back.
Alvin won the next game too. And the next. ’Oh, you’re a lucky one and no mistake,’ chuckled Margaret. ‘No wonder Norbert wouldn’t play with you.’
Norbert smiled a trifle grimly and said nothing.
But as the shuttle approached the outskirts of the city Alvin’s luck began to change. His scores were still high but somehow theirs were just a little bit higher. Then he won again. At that point, on Peggy’s suggestion, the stakes were raised to £20 a throw. Norbert cleared his throat and tried to catch Alvin’s eye, but without success.
In no time at all it seemed, Alvin had parted with the first of his two months’ pay and would, no doubt, have parted with the second also had not Norbert, in standing up and reaching for the overhead rack, somehow managed to dislodge Alvin’s grip. It dropped fair and square on to the gaming dish and scattered the dice across the floor of the compartment. The language of the two old ladies surprised Alvin who rebuked Norbert for his clumsiness. By the time the dice had been retrieved the shuttle had whispered into the Paddington Terminal and the passengers were alighting.
The last Alvin saw of Margaret and Peggy they appeared to be heading towards the Terminal buffet accompanied, strangely enough, by the very man who had been so rude about Norbert. He pointed out this curious coincidence to the chimp who merely shrugged glumly and told Alvin he had been taken for a ride. ’That game was fixed,’ he said. ‘Some sort of magnetic trick, I suppose. I tried to warn you.’
Alvin was deeply shocked. ‘You mean those two nice old ladies were cheating me? I don’t believe it!’
‘Suit yourself, son,’ said Norbert, ‘but if I hadn’t dropped that grip when I did it’s a safe bet you’d have been cleaned right out by now. How much did they milk you for?’
’Two hundred pounds,’ said Alvin sadly. ‘Are you saying that you dropped my bag on the table on purpose?’
Norbert chuckled. ‘Pity I didn’t think of doing it a bit sooner, wasn’t it? Still, maybe it’ll have taught you a lesson. Come on now, let’s go and find out about that Croydon connection. And for Pete’s sake, Alvin, keep your purse zipped into your inside pocket.’
They discovered that the electronic connection indicator was out of action, so Norbert sought out a fellow anthropoid on the Expressway staff and put the question to him. The uniformed chimp regarded Alvin curiously. ‘Who’s the pinkie?’ he asked Norbert. ‘Friend of yours?’
‘He’s a good lad,’ said Norbert.
‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ said Alvin and held out his hand.
The chimp rolled his eyes. ‘Hey, d’you want t’get me the sack!’ he hissed, and turning back to Norbert said: ‘Just what kind of a goon is this?’
‘He’s a bit simple,’ said Norbert, ‘but one of the best. He doesn’t mean any harm.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ said the other doubtfully. ‘Well, what can I do for you, friend?’
Norbert explained again that they were anxious to get to Croydon and were wondering whether they should take a cab.
‘You’ll be lucky,’ grunted the chimp. ‘Don’t you know there’s a strike on?’
‘No,’ said Norbert.
‘Well, there is. So I reckon your best bet would be to take the flow-way to Baker Street, hoof it up to Oxford Street, then round Hyde Park and try for a Suburban from the Kensington Terminus. Hang on a minute. Hey, Charlie, how’s the South Suburban?’
‘It was running this morning, Mose,’ replied another ape approaching them. ‘’Bout two an hour, I think. What’s the problem?’
‘These two yokels want to get to Croydon,’
Charlie pushed back his cap and scratched his head. ’Flowway to Baker Street then dahn t’the Dilly.’
‘Not Kensington?’
‘Dilly’s safer, Mose. They’re knockin’ em off in daylight now rahnd the Park. Up to you, of course. Me, I’d have the Dilly.’ ’Thanks,’ said Norbert. ‘Come on, Alvin.’
‘Good luck,’ grinned Mose. ‘Rather you than me.’
They headed towards the main cloaca. ‘Now you stick close to me, son,’ instructed Norbert. ‘If we get separated down here, you get off at Baker Street and wait for me there. Have you got that?’
Alvin nodded. ‘Baker Street’, he repeated dutifully.
Norbert tugged his hat down over one eye, humped his shoulders and barged a way into the dense crowd which was struggling for standing room on the articulated roadway. Alvin clutched his grip and plunged after him. Within seconds they were being sucked down into one of the huge tiled tunnels, two fragments of a solid tide of human and anthropoid bodies which was being swept inexorably towards the heart of the city.
There was no problem about keeping their balance. The passengers were crammed so tightly together it would have been physically impossible to fall over. Electronic music, interspersed with raucous commercials, twanged and hummed through the fetid air. Somewhere ahead a woman began to shriek hysterically, but none of the passengers surrounding Alvin appeared in the least perturbed. Their eyes had the filmy, glazed look he had seen before only in the dead fish he sometimes found floating belly-upwards in Lake Tring.
Eventually a vast illuminated sign loomed up to inform them that they were approaching Baker Street. Norbert grabbed Alvin and began squirming his way towards the edge of the flow-way. He need not have bothered. A minute later the whole crowd surged off the track sweeping them up to the turnstiles whether they wanted to go there or not. Norbert thrust the plastic tags of their travel warrants into the scanner and then they were through.
Alvin drew what seemed to be his first breath for an hour. ’Is it always like that in the city, Norbert?’ he enquired with a shudder.
’The Terminal links are the worst,’ said Norbert, ’specially now there’s a cab strike on. I daresay you’d get used to it in time.’
‘But I’ve never seen so many people. Where do they all come from?’
‘Well, there’s over 50 million in Inner London for a start,’ said Norbert restoring the travel warrants to his wallet and placing the wallet in an inside compartment of his brief case. ‘And another 50 million come in from the suburbs every day.’
‘But why don’t they live in the country like we do?’
Norbert shrugged. ‘Land’s too precious, son, that’s why. The other reason is they couldn’t. Haven’t you ever wondered why we never see more than a couple of hundred up at the lakes?’
‘No,’ said Alvin who hadn’t.
‘Well, people are conditioned to like what they’ve got. They have to be.’
‘Conditioned to like this?’ said Alvin, gazing around him at the seething multitude. ‘How can they be?’
‘Maybe not this particularly,’ said Norbert, ‘but to living in the super cities. How else could you fit 3 50 millions into an island the size of ours?’ He zipped up his case, locked it, and motioned with his head towards one of the street exits. ‘Come on,’ he grinned, ‘let’s go and find ourselves something to eat.’
SEVEN
They stepped out into the canyon that was Baker Street. Although it was still the middle of the afternoon the street lighting was already full on. Only on the very brightest of days could sufficient sunlight penetrate the stratospheric haze and filter down through the cab grid lattice which festooned the towering residential blocks to illuminate the roadway far below.
The first three eating houses they tried all displayed ‘N.A.’ (No Anthropoids) or ‘H.O.’ (Humans Only) notices in their windows, but the fourth proclaimed itself an open house and they went in.
It was one of a chain of middle-grade, self-service eateries called ‘Horn of Plenty. They were to be found in all the Supercities under their motif of a buxom Ceres ladling an inexhaustible supply of appetizing goodies out of a giant shell. Within, above a battery of chromium lockers, mouthwatering, coloured stereoscopic images invited the hungry multitude to slot in their £10 pieces and help themselves to health. Alvin selected roast chicken with mushrooms and French fries. Norbert opted for ‘Vegetarian’s Delite’. Both turned out to be processed protein staple, artificially flavoured and coloured, and shaped to bear some crude resemblance to their remote ancestors.
The two travellers carried their purchases across to a vacant table and sat down. No sooner had they done so than faint, convivial sounds of eating and drinking seemed to enwrap them like mist: the tinkle of glassware and cutlery; anticipatory rustling of paper napkins; the crack of crisp breadsticks being broken; little ’oohs’, ‘ahs’, and ‘urns’ of gustatory pleasure; and all interspersed with tiny, genteel, but unmistakable, sighs and burps of the well-fed.
Since all the food was in fact served in compartmented plastic trays and the only implements supplied were a solitary plastic spoon apiece, the management had elected to reinforce the bon-viveur illusion by triggering sonics to the seats and releasing minute amounts of selected pheromones through the ventilators.
Alvin was so. intrigued that he stood up again only to discover that by so doing he had initiated a further automatic process whereby his half of the tabletop began sliding into the wall carrying his tray with it. He sat down again just in time to retrieve it and to appreciate the force of the warning printed round the rim of his tray: ‘Customers are respectfully requested not to vacate their seats during the course of their meal’
When Norbert had chomped his way stolidly through the last of his viridescent lettuce-type salad leaves he laid down his spoon, wiped his lips with his handkerchief and said: ‘I think we might as well walk up to the Park. If we find the Suburbans aren’t running, we’ll still have plenty of time to get down to Piccadilly and try from there.’
‘All right,’ agreed Alvin. ‘Whatever you say.’
Norbert inserted the tip of a prosthetic thumb into his mouth and delicately dislodged a morsel of synthetic beetroot from his palate. ‘Doctor Pfizier told you why we’re taking you to the M.O.P., did he?’
‘Because of my libido,’ said Alvin. ‘Do you know what that is?’
‘Mating urge,’ grunted Norbert.
’Oh. Is that bad?’
‘We-1-1,’ said the chimp judiciously, ‘I suppose it might be. If you let it.’
‘Have you had it, Norbert?’
Norbert chuckled. ‘All that’s way behind me now, lad. I leave it to the youngsters. More important things to worry about. Mind you, I don’t say there weren’t times…’ and he slipped into one of those thoughtful silences that were so familiar to Alvin.
‘Doctor Somervell seemed to think I had immature sexual fantasies,’ remarked Alvin, sucking the pseudo-flesh off a plastic wishbone and laying it back tidily on his tray. ’That was after I told her about the girl I saw yesterday. Before she made me take advantage of her.’
Norbert surfaced abruptly from his reverie. ‘Who did what, lad?’
Alvin blinked. ‘Doctor Somervell did. I’m sure she meant it kindly though.’
‘What happened?’
‘I’m not really sure,’ confessed Alvin. ‘I couldn’t see very well.’
‘She turned the light out?’
’Oh no,’ said Alvin. ‘It all sort of happened under her clothes.’
‘But you must have done something, lad?’
‘No, I didn’t, Norbert. She did it all. Honestly.’
‘But you must—well, it doesn’t really matter. How did Doctor Pfizier get to hear of it?’
’Oh he came in when she was sitting on top of me.’
Norbert who was not a powerful visualizer in the normal way found the demands of this particular scene almost overwhelming. ‘Holy gorilla!’ he murmured, which was the strongest epithet he ever allowed himself.
Alvin spooned in the last of his French fries and washed them down with synthetic grape juice. ‘Do you suppose Professor Poynter will want to do that too, Norbert?’
‘I daresay she’ll be prepared to take your word for it,’ said the chimp. ‘Now if you’ve finished we’d better be on our way.’ They descended once more into the street and found the sidewalk thronged with curious bystanders all gaping at some sort of parade which was passing down Baker Street towards Marble Arch. Since neither Alvin nor Norbert was particularly tall, all they could discern of the procession were the wobbling placards carried by the marchers. These seemed to embrace such a wide spectrum of concern from the ultraviolet of ‘freedom of choice!’ to the infra-red of ‘votes for apes!’ that Norbert was moved to enquire of a spectator what the demonstration was about. ‘Hampstead and Highgate Protestors Rally,’ he was told.
When five minutes had passed and still the procession showed no signs of coming to an end, Norbert had a sudden inspiration. Pulling Alvin with him by the arm, he squeezed his way through to the front of the crowd. Seizing the first opportune gap in the ranks he stepped boldly into the parade immediately behind a tall, thin, balding man of indeterminate age who was holding aloft a placard which read: ‘crewys road anti-vasectomy league’. His companion, as tall and gangling as he was, though differentiated by a sparse beard, carried a similar sign inscribed: ‘save our sperms!’ Norbert lifted his hat solemnly to them both and earned himself a friendly smile of welcome.
‘First class turn out, isn’t it?’ observed the beardless standard bearer. ‘You with the V.F.A. crowd?’
Norbert nodded and winked at Alvin.
‘I believe they’re up ahead somewhere,’ said the beard. ‘I daresay you might get through to them if you tried.’
Norbert shook his head to signify that he was quite happy where he was, whereupon the beardless one glanced back over his ranks and cried: ‘Right! All together now! One, two, three! Balls! Balls! We need balls …Balls! Balls! We need balls … Balls! Balls! We need balls!…’
Alvin and Norbert found themselves chanting with the rest, their heels drumming a heart-warming rhythm from the compo-surfaced roadway. Like errant snowflakes a few shreds of torn-up paper fluttered down from the canyon walls far above their heads, metamorphosing into brilliant multicoloured butterflies as they slid and paused and twirled above the rainbow neon signs which advertised the dream Arcades of Portman Square. ‘BallsJ’ howled Alvin, his innocent blue eyes glittering with the happy excitement of his new-found solidarity, and ‘Balls/’ thundered Norbert doffing his hat left and right to all and sundry, ‘Balls! Balls! We need balls/’
They swung round the corner into Oxford Street and saw ahead of them the narrow crack that was the sky broadening out and deepening into something almost approaching blue over the fringes of Hyde Park. Four hundred yards ahead the banners of the procession leaders scooped up the exhausted sunbeams and battered them like shuttlecocks from one to another as they snaked around Marble Arch and into the Park. From the sidewalks the massed onlookers cheered derisively or just stared apathetically, while the white helmets of Security Guards bobbed like ping-pong balls as they cantered up and down the line on their electric prancers, their white stun probes couched like lances and their red and white gas pistols bouncing against their hips.
