"I'm not bragging." She sighed again, and resumed her fruit. Eying it
speculatively, she said, "I guess I'm just bored with life, that's
all. Sometimes things seem so silly. Like all the times you have to
get a new body. You'd think the manufacturers were giving them away
free."
"Yeah. Not like it used to be. Guess business is pretty good."
"Something ought to be done about it."
Mark grinned mischievously. "What do you suggest? Build another
factory?"
"Oh, you know you can't do that. Somebody is always blowing it up."
"Well, don't worry. In another hundred years or so, people will start
dying off again. These protobodies aren't as serviceable as the
manufactured kind."
"Yes, but if they keep producing new people in the Decanting Centers,
what good is that going to do?"
"I dunno. Blow up the Decanting Centers, maybe."
"Maybe," Jennette said, glancing impishly at the man beside her, "we
ought to just stop wearing these silly old manufactured bodies
entirely."
"Yes?" Mark tasted a pomegranate, made a face, and tried another.
"Just what do you suggest people wear?"
"They could go around in their protobodies."
"What?" Mark looked swiftly and searchingly at her, alarm on his face.
"Why Mark," she laughed disarmingly. "You're such a righteous beast,
aren't you?"
"Great Atoms, Jennette," he said, gazing intently at her
golden-flecked eyes, wondering what strange things went on inside that
lovely head. "You mean go around all the time as if we were savages?
Why that's illegal, immoral, and besides--besides, it's dangerous.
Suppose somebody took a shot at you? You've only got one protobody,
you know."
"A clever fighter like you shouldn't have too much trouble with that,
if you're careful," she said gaily. "And I'm pretty good at that
myself."
Mark took a slow deep breath as he decided that she was just teasing
him. "I'm surprised at you, Jennette."
She shrugged. "I'm bored, I guess. I'd like to try something new, just
for excitement. Personally, sometimes I think the whole social system
we have is pretty silly, anyway."
"Atoms," Mark mumbled.
"No need to swear about it," she chided him. "Come on, Mark. Just
think about it for a minute. And be consistent."
"Consistency is all right for a free psi," he said. "It sure doesn't
do a protobody any good."
Jennette laughed scornfully. "I'll bet you believe all that stuff they
feed you in the Decanting Center about ancient history."
"'Course not," Mark said defensively.
"All right then. Why follow all these rules of social conduct if
there's no good basis for them?"
"Aw, but there is," he replied seriously. "There was a big war--way
back centuries before we were decanted out at Center."
"Hah," said Jennette.
"Sure. And it was a whole lot of people who cooperated with each other
in it. There must have been hundreds of them--it was an awfully big
war. Hundreds of people, all on one side, all fighting together
against the other side."
"I don't believe it."
"It's true, I tell you," Mark insisted religiously. "Hundreds and
hundreds of people. Maybe even as many as a thousand, all dressed
alike--with clothes, I mean. And they didn't shoot each other--they
just killed the people they were fighting--the hundreds of people on
the other side."
"Other side of what?"
Mark frowned. "Oh, I guess that is just an expression. But that's what
happened, anyway. Before civilization got started, people cooperated
like that."
"That's just a whole lot of theory," Jennette insisted. "Nobody's
going to make me ever believe people used to act like that. Besides,
there just aren't enough people around to have all those mythical
wars."
Patiently, Mark continued. "I'm telling you, Jennette, this is more
than theory. There are still some records left from those days."
"Prove it."
"All right. That's not hard. Somebody had to build the factories,
didn't they? And the Decanting Centers?"
"Robots."
"Who built the first robot factory?"
Jennette considered. Then she shrugged petulantly. "Oh all right.
Maybe a few people did cooperate. But not hundreds of them. People
just don't act like that."
"Well, they did. And, of course, the obvious thing happened. Since
they cooperated in some things, they cooperated in a lot of things,
even fighting. That's how they could make war, you know--not the nice,
social sort of fighting we do now. And you can imagine what happened.
You can kill an awful lot of people awful fast, if a gang gets
together on it like that. If they didn't have the artificial bodies
and the psi transfer transmitters to make them come alive, there
wouldn't have been anybody left after a while. That cooperation is
rough stuff."
"Obviously," she commented dryly.
"Well, that's the reason for everything, then. Pretty soon the
factories couldn't turn out hypnobodies fast enough and people had to
fight in their protobodies sometimes. But after a few centuries, the
leaders began to get civilized, and decided to put an end to all this
cooperative killing. I guess they all got together and agreed not to
cooperate with each other in anything in the future."
"It stands to reason," Mark concluded, "people had to learn to be
civilized. They weren't just born that way. It's--it's culture."
"Pouf," said Jennette critically.
"All right," he growled, biting viciously into a pomegranate. "Let's
hear your big story if it's so good."
* * * * *
Jennette stretched out her legs and contemplated her wiggling toes.
"Oh, I don't know. I don't have any real ideas. But I know better than
to believe that sort of nonsense. People just aren't like that, and
you know it." She hesitated thoughtfully, then continued. "Maybe a few
of them got together now and then for a party or something like this.
But not hundreds of them."
When Mark did not reply, she laughed and said, "I guess I'm just
feeling risque tonight."
"You sure are," he mumbled.
"Of course there are parts of the old mythology that seem rather
interesting--beautiful, even--"
"It's not mythology."
"Like the part that deals with marriage."