Part 6 (2/2)

The pudgy capitalman pulled his feet off the ottoman. He leaned forward intently and stuck his elbows on his knees until he had nearly curled himself up like a pill bug.

”Listen: all of us in the bio/logics industry, all the capitalmen, the programmers, the channelers, the drudges, the fiefcorpers and memecorpers and engineers and a.n.a.lysts ... we're slaves, Natch. We're all slaves to want.

”Want. It drives the world! It moves mountains, it swallows cultures!

”You see it, don't you, Natch? Want is everywhere. It's in people. It's in programming. In politics. In nature. The universe just won't stay still. It wants to move; even its smallest particles want to be in motion. Take bio/logics. Aren't bio/logic programs in a natural state of incompleteness? We release version 1.0 of a program, and inevitably it is imperfect. Version 1.0s want a version 2.0, don't they? They practically beg for it. You toil for months on version 2.0, and you've still barely tapped into its bottomless reservoir of want. Version 2.0 wants a version 3, version 3.0 wants a version 4, and so on and on and on and on and on-forever!”

The antacid program wasn't helping. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Natch realized he would not follow through on his implied threat to Figaro. He would not spend his last few hours at the Proud Eagle shuttling desperately between second-rate capitalmen and seeking illegal handouts. If only this interview could be over. If only I could shrivel up inside my sh.e.l.l like a snail and never see Figaro Fi or Brone or Vigal again.

But the capitalman continued on mercilessly. ”You ever heard that story about the Bodhisattva of Creed Objectivv and Lucco Primo? The Bodhisattva asks Primo what the key to success is. Primo says, Three things. Ability, energy, and direction. You have the ability, Natch, and you definitely have the energy-maybe more ability and energy than I've ever seen.

”But where's your direction? I don't need forty-five minutes to see you haven't got any. You have endless wants, Natch! But want without purpose destroys a person. Those who can't master their wants are loose cannons. They bring companies down. They ruin lives. They may flare brightly for a while, oh yes! But in the end, Natch, loose cannons fail. They lose money.

”Now your friend Brone-”

”Please don't call him that,” Natch croaked.

”Your friend Brone is a real sharp programmer, but I've seen better. He's got a way with people, and he's a handsome kid, which never hurts. But he's got one thing you don't. He knows exactly where he's going, and what he's doing.

”I've seen it all before. You'll get to the top quicker than Brone, but then you'll just get pulled down by some other kid who's hungrier and angrier than you are. That's just the way it works.”

Figaro arose, looking well pleased with his little sermon. He put the chewed cigar in his coat pocket, leaving Natch to wonder why he had drawn it out in the first place. Just before cutting his multi connection, he turned back to the boy with an arched eyebrow.

”Now, about that story with Lucco Primo.... A couple years later, this drudge asks Primo, So what's the most important element of success? Ability, energy, or direction? Primo sits back and thinks about it for a minute. Direction, he tells the drudge. Ability and energy you can buy. ”

Figaro started chortling obscenely and prepared to cut his multi connection.

”Good luck at initiation,” said Fi. ”You're going to need it.”

Some of the boys heard their initiation would take place in the South Pacific, on the edge of Islander territory. There were hundreds of islands in the area that remained pristine and untouched by modern technology. Other boys countered that an island wasn't remote enough. No, they would be shuttled off to some orbital colony specially designed for this purpose, or maybe one of the lawless quadrants of Mars.

Horvil decided (based on no evidence whatsoever) they were headed to the bottom of the ocean to live in one of the bubble colonies that the real estate developers tried to revive every twenty years or so. ”I knew I should have studied up on hydroponics,” he fretted to Natch as they filed out of the hive for the last time. ”And I'm a terrible swimmer. Can't even hold my breath for a minute. You'll take care of me, right, Natch? You won't let me drown, will you?”

Natch hadn't spoken a word all morning. He found it pointless to speculate about their destination. Countless initiation compounds littered the civilized world, from Earth to Luna to the asteroid belt, and he never heard that any one was better than another. Besides, Natch knew from long and painful experience that isolation has no geographic boundaries. Even if the proctors arranged to shuttle them out to the remotest orbital colony-like one of those experimental stations beyond Jupiter-that still wouldn't erase the shame he had suffered last night with Figaro Fi. And Brone would still be there with his insufferable smirk and the knowledge that he had bested Natch.

Horvil and Natch marched solemnly with the rest of the boys towards the sleek hoverbird that would carry them to their destination. The Falcon 4730 was the standard workhorse of the aeros.p.a.ce industry, used for everything from cross-city transportation to inter-continental cargo hops. This craft could get them anywhere on Earth, or maybe even to a low-hanging orbital colony-but not underwater, Horvil was relieved to note.

Sixty-four boys boarded the hoverbird and settled into their seats with little conversation. Some pressed their faces up against the gla.s.s for a last wistful look at the beehive-shaped building they called home. The hive windows were lined with the small noses of children curious for a glimpse at their future.

”Goodbye, f.u.c.ked-up childhood,” sighed Horvil, waving manically at the children. ”h.e.l.lo, f.u.c.ked-up adulthood!”

Natch wasn't listening. He was thinking about Figaro Fi's accusation: Where is your direction? The boy winced at the irony as the hoverbird levitated over the courtyard and winged away towards the unknown. Wherever Natch was going, he was headed there fast.

From liftoff to touchdown, the trip took only a few hours. They were not headed to some remote orbital colony after all, but to a nature preserve southwest of the Twin Cities. The initiation compound sat on a few hundred square kilometers of undeveloped country, completely walled off from the outside world. The hoverbird landed on a makes.h.i.+ft platform atop a dusty, windswept hill.

Natch saw the dust and instinctively reached out with his mind for a sinus-clearing program. He discovered that there was nothing to reach for.

They had been cut off from the Data Sea.

Most of the other boys had already realized this fact. They disembarked with grim looks on their faces, shouldering their packs and wondering what would happen next. The lone proctor who accompanied them on the hoverbird trudged behind a large boulder that served as a podium and began to speak. His words had the air of a speech honed and refined over many years of repet.i.tion.

”Two billion people died in the Autonomous Revolt,” thundered the proctor, thumping his fist on the boulder. ”Two billion! Approximately one-fifth of the world's population at the time. Entire cities and cultures and ethnicities wiped out forever.”

He paused for dramatic effect. None of the boys so much as breathed.

”Why? They died because they had forgotten about this.” The proctor swept his arm expansively at their surroundings. A thousand trees waved in the breeze like some rapturous congregation, while a small encampment down the hill served as the lone Doubting Thomas on the horizon.

”What you see around you is nature as your ancestors once lived it,” continued the proctor. ”Your ancestors did not have access to the Data Sea. They could not activate bio/logic programs to keep themselves warm in the winter, or fetch ten different weather forecasts with a thought. They did not have OCHRE machines working inside their bodies to s.h.i.+eld them from injury and disease. Your ancestors learned to live this way during a hundred thousand years of trial and error.

”But when humanity decided to ignore its heritage-to place its trust in living machines instead of in themselves-the race nearly perished. And because humanity had forgotten the lessons of its ancestors, billions more were doomed to starve in the horrible decades that followed.

”We must never forget our heritage again.

”And so, during the next year, you will become acquainted with nature in a way you never have before. You will experience pain and frustration and injury. The things you see as ent.i.tlements will become hard-earned luxuries. Because of this, some of you will decide that nature is your enemy. Others will see nature as an impersonal and uncaring force.

”But if you lose hope, remember this: Our bodies were built to sur vive the harshest punishments nature can give. Over a hundred thousand years, we conquered nature. So will you again.

”You have many advantages over your ancestors. You have generations of genetic engineering that has broadened your minds and strengthened your bodies. You have all the acc.u.mulated knowledge fifteen years of hive education has given you. You have your comrades. And when all else fails, you have the certainty that a hoverbird pilot will be back on this very spot in twelve months to take you back to civilization.

”So when someone asks why your parents sent you to initiation, why you spent a year of your life out in the woods instead of practicing your bio/logic programming skills, you tell them this: I came to initiation to fulfill my responsibility to humanity. I came here to ensure the continuation of the human race.

”The Proud Eagle wishes to thank you for your many years with us. When you emerge from this last test, you will no longer be hive boys. You will be young men.

”As Sheldon Surina liked to say, May you always move towards perfection. ”

The proctor gave a polite bow to the a.s.sembled boys, who were too overwhelmed to do anything but respond in kind. Then he tramped onboard his vehicle and gave a nod to the hoverbird pilot. Within minutes, the s.h.i.+p was noiselessly whizzing southwards, back towards Cape Town.

Sixty-four boys stood at the top of the hill, looking sheepishly at one another and the encampment below. Then, moving as one, they began the hike towards their home for the next twelve months.

The accommodations were not as primitive as everyone had expected. Four rows of wood cabins lined four dusty streets, watched over by a large metal sign labeled CAMP 11. Of course, these houses didn't behave like the ones they were used to-they couldn't prepare food or obey mental commands or compress themselves to save s.p.a.ce-but they were a far cry from the hovels the boys had feared.

The initiates split off into groups of four and chose cabins. Brone and Natch drifted to opposite corners of the camp like enemy kings of chess. Horvil stayed by Natch.

The proctors had provided plenty of clothing, reasonably comfortable beds, and even a rudimentary form of indoor plumbing. Few of the boys had ever seen a real toilet before, and they spent hours flus.h.i.+ng them in a symphony of adolescent glee. A scouting party quickly discovered large and well-tended gardens on the east side of the camp, with enough food for all. There were storage rooms stocked with old-fas.h.i.+oned pens and stacks of treepaper, gardening tools, parkas, and pocket knives. It seemed like the only hards.h.i.+p the boys would face out here was boredom.

For the first few weeks, it was all a wonderful adventure. The microscopic OCHREs clinging to their insides stopped working. Hair and pimples sprouted without provocation. Digestive systems resumed their ancient dance with food as if the past two hundred years of gastric engineering had never happened. The boys learned how to clean themselves in the nearby stream, how to groom themselves with knives and scissors, how to use spades to dig tubers from the rock-hard ground.

Everyone experienced at least one morning of disorientation when he groggily tried to summon the morning news or his favorite channel off the Jamm. But all in all, the boys did not have enough time to miss the civilized world. Their days were filled with ch.o.r.es that needed to be done by hand, without the aid of bio/logics or modern machinery. Often, they found themselves without the necessary tools to accomplish a task and had to improvise. All of this took time, and it was not unusual for a boy to look up from the field he had started weeding that morning, only to discover a setting sun.

”It's amazing that our ancestors got anything done,” Horvil groused to Natch one night. They both lay prostrate on their beds, sweaty and exhausted from a day fending off gophers in the fields. ”After gardening, bathing, grooming, s.h.i.+tting and cleaning, I'm too tired to do anything else.”

The pressure on the boys was most intense during the first month; they knew that any missteps now would have drastic repercussions come wintertime. The Twin Cities soil was hard and unforgiving, but the hive had provided efficient tools for prying into its skin and tending the perennial crops. Even more useful were the gardening manuals the proctors had left behind. The tips on plowing and crop rotation were nice, but the comments previous initiates had scribbled in the margins proved invaluable. Over the years, tenants of CAMP 11 had covered every blank centimeter of treepaper with hints about the best places to forage for wild game, what to do in case of rain, dirty stories, impenetrable in-jokes, and gossip many years gone stale. One book had a list on the inside cover t.i.tled THINGS WE f.u.c.kED UP (AND YOU SHOULDN'T).

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