Ocean on Top

“You’d better. Whatever he said about these people being ready to do almost anything to keep technically skilled visitors down here is probably true. From what I’ve been able to make out in the last few weeks, unless some very extensive work is done on this installation quite soon, there’ll be twelve or fifteen thousand people migrating back to the surface and asking for their power ration in the next couple of decades.”

“How could they have the gall to do that?” Marie asked in scorn. ‘They’ve been down here all their lives, squandering power that should have gone into the world network and shared with the rest of us. They’re just like those old French aristocrats with their "Let ‘em eat cake" attitude — except the aristocrats would have been too proud to come begging the Jacquerie for crusts if their own wealth vanished.”

“That was my first reaction, too,” Joey wrote imperturbably. ‘I got myself pressured for the same reason Bert and you” — he nodded to me — ‘did; I pla

“That’s what Bert claimed,” I put in. ‘He said that such reports had been sent back before, decades ago, and that nothing had come of them.”

Joey reclaimed the pad.

“I never ran into any accounts of that sort. Bert and I wouldn’t have looked for just the same material, though, anyway. My point is that the Board can’t do anything about it.”

“Why not? Look at all the energy going to waste down here!” interjected Marie.

“Think again, girl. It’s not going to waste any more than the power used by natural plants on the surface for photosynthesis is going to waste — far less, in fact. It’s true that you can divide the power output of this installation by the local population figure and come up with a figure many times the normal per capita energy ration; but by far the greater part of that power goes into the lights. If you cut any significant percentage of the lights, you drop the photosynthesis rate to a level where there won’t be enough oxygen for the present population. If you cut the population by much, even the shaky maintenance that the outfit has now will degenerate, and, as I said, the place will have to shut down.

“You may criticize the decision the ancestors of these people made three or four generations ago. I agreed it was highly immoral by our standards. However, the current population is simply stuck with the consequences, and at least they’re not drawing from the planetary power net. They’re on their own, except intellectually. It seems quite in line with duty, to me, to stay here and help them. You’ll have to make your own choice.”

Marie was silent for half a minute or so, wrapped in thought. When she spoke again, it seemed to be a change of subject.

“Why did Bert lie to me? None of what you’ve been pointing out — which I can see makes sense — seems to call for it.”

Joey shrugged.

“I have no idea. Remember, he didn’t tell me you were here, much less anything else co

Joey’s eyes and Marie’s both swiveled toward me. After looking at my face for three or four seconds, the girl said, ‘All right, you know. Out with it.”

I reached for the pad which Joey was holding out to me, and made it fairly brief.

“He lied to you for the same reason I did. He didn’t care what you reported to the Board, but he didn’t want you ever

to learn that Joey was alive. He wanted to get you back to the surface believing that Joey was just a memory and go back with you. I’d have done the same.”

Joey took the pad after Marie had read it, cleared off the message and wrote, ‘Thanks, Pal,” holding it so that I could see it but not Marie. Then he cleared it again immediately. If Marie noticed this, she made no comment. She may not have noticed, for my words had obviously jolted her.

I see,” she said after at least two minutes of silence. ‘That puts a different light on the whole thing. He’s less obvious than some people, I must admit.” She paused for a few more seconds. Then, ‘Joey, I admit it’s your own private business; but are you willing to tell me exactly and truthfully why you decided to stay down here?”

A negative shake of the head was the answer.

“Or how long you plan to stay?”

Another negative.

“Or even whether you still regard yourself as a Board official?”

Still refusal. I was pretty sure that Joey didn’t really care whether Marie knew the answers to those questions, especially the first one; but, especially with the first one, he didn’t want to tell her himself. He was coming as close as his personality would let him to telling her to get out of his hair. Marie, as I have already said many times, is sharper than I am, in spite of one blind spot.

She looked at him speculatively after his third headshake, for several seconds. Then she suddenly turned to me.

“Are you staying?”

Naturally, I didn’t know. All I could do was throw the question back at her; she might be rougher on me than Joey had been on her, but I was ready for it — I hoped.

“Are you?” I wrote.

“ A shock wave, not quite painful, hit all of us; I don’t know whether she hit something with her fist or stamped her foot.

“Will you make your own mind up, just this once?” she snapped.

That was unjust, of course. I’m perfectly able to make decisions, and Marie knows it. She’s even admitted it. I just don’t like to make them when there’s a shortage of relevant information. She knew perfectly well what information I wanted, and why, too — she’d just been trying to get the same sort out of Joey for the same reason.

I made an honest effort to decide without reference to Marie, but I couldn’t do it.

Chapter Twenty-five

On the surface there is sunlight and sound. I hadn’t really appreciated either until recently. Sunlight on trees and lakes, blue sky, red and orange sunsets. Girls” voices and falling raindrops and laughter and puns.

Down here is the beating of hearts, humming machinery, tapping and thudding of random activity, but otherwise silence — no music, no voices, not even a tongue click or snapping fingers.

On the surface there is restraint. Every action is conditioned by the underlying awareness that it may involve a waste of energy which means life. If someone accidentally shorts a power cell or lets a fire start he feels as guilty as the Victorian-age girl who misbehaved with her boy friend. The fact that your wife is dying in a hospital five miles away is a borderline excuse for using a power vehicle. An air or space flight is considered only in direct co

Down here, while there is actually only a slightly larger supply of energy per person, the difference in attitude is all the world. No one is either worried or offended that his neighbor has used more than his fair share of energy. I had winced time after time there in the library as a reader had swum off leaving his carrel light or reading projector going, with no one else even noticing the lapse.

And why couldn’t there be music here? I hadn’t heard any, and singing was obviously impossible. But stringed instruments should work. They might have to be modified in design, but they should work. Electrical ones would certainly be possible. If there weren’t any, I could design them.

Even if there were no girls” voices, there were still girls.

There was a good-looking one only a few feet away, watching us as though she had some idea of what was going on.

But it was so different. Even with energy restraint gone as far as my neighbors were concerned, would I feel comfortable after a lifetime under its rules? Would the thought of the black, crushing ocean between me and all I had grown up with loom too large? Or if I didn’t stay, would the thought of what I might have accomplished down here come too often between me and normal living?