Part 2 (1/2)
Again they jolted to a stop and the horns howled all around them.
Harry sat there until a muscle in the side of his jaw began to twitch.
Suddenly he pounded on the horn with both fists.
”Shut up!” he yelled. ”For the love of Heaven, shut up!”
Abruptly he slumped back. ”Sorry,” he mumbled. ”It's my d.a.m.ned headache. I--I've got to get out of this.”
”Job getting you down?”
”No. It's a good job. At least everybody tells me so. Twenty-five hours a week, three hundred bucks. The car. The room. The telescreen and liquor and yellowjackets. Plenty of time to kill. Unless it's the time that's killing me.”
”But--what do you _want_?”
Harry stepped on the accelerator and they inched along. Now the street widened into eight traffic lanes and the big semis joined the procession on the edge of the downtown area.
”I want out,” Harry said. ”Out of this.”
”Don't you ever visit the National Preserves?” Frazer asked.
”Sure I do. Fly up every vacation. Take a tame plane to a tame government resort and catch my quota of two tame fish. Great sport! If I got married, I'd be ent.i.tled to four tame fish. But that's not what I want. I want what my father used to talk about. I want to drive into the country, without a permit, mind you; just to drive wherever I like. I want to see cows and chickens and trees and lakes and sky.”
”You sound like a Naturalist.”
”Don't sneer. Maybe the Naturalists are right. Maybe we ought to cut out all this phoney progress and phoney peace that pa.s.seth all understanding. I'm no liberal, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I think the Naturalists have the only answer.”
”But what can you do about it?” Frazer murmured. ”Suppose for the sake of argument that they _are_ right. How can you change things? We can't just _will_ ourselves to stop growing, and we can't legislate against biology. More people, in better health, with more free time, are just bound to have more offspring. It's inevitable, under the circ.u.mstances. And neither you nor I nor anyone has the right to condemn millions upon millions of others to death through war or disease.”
”I know,” Harry said. ”It's hopeless, I guess. All the same, I want out.” He wet his lips. ”Frazer, you're on the Board here. You've got connections higher up. If I could only get a chance to transfer to Ag Culture, go on one of those farms as a worker--”
Frazer shook his head. ”Sorry, Harry. You know the situation there, I'm sure. Right now there's roughly ninety million approved applications on file. Everybody wants to get into Ag Culture.”
”But couldn't I just buy some land, get a government contract for foodstuffs?”
”Have you got the bucks? A minimum forty acres leased from one of the farm corporations will cost you two hundred thousand at the very least, not counting equipment.” He paused. ”Besides, there's Vocational Apt. What did your tests show?”
”You're right,” Harry said. ”I'm supposed to be an agency man. An agency man until I die. Or retire on my pension, at fifty, and sit in my little room for the next fifty years, turning on the telescreen every morning to hear some loudmouthed liar tell me it's a beautiful day in Chicagee. Who knows, maybe by that time we'll have a hundred billion people enjoying peace and progress and prosperity. All sitting in little rooms and--”
”Watch out!” Frazer grabbed the wheel. ”You nearly hit that truck.” He waited until Harry's face relaxed before relinquis.h.i.+ng his grip.
”Harry, you'd better go in for a checkup. It isn't just a headache with you, is it?”
”You're not fooling,” Harry told him. ”It isn't just a headache.”
He began to think about what it _really_ was, and that helped a little. It helped him get through the worst part, which was the downtown traffic and letting Frazer off and listening to Frazer urge him to see a doctor.
Then he got to the building parking area and let them take his car away and bury it down in the droning darkness where the horns hooted and the headlights glared.