Boarding the walk again, they rode through the park to the main street
of the entertainment section. "What was that all about?" Hendley asked.
"You have to watch the park after dark," Nik said. "And be careful on
any dimly lighted side streets, too, even in the residential area."
"You mean it's dangerous?" It took a moment for the implication to sink
in. There was no place in the cities of the Organization where one
could not ride or walk safely at any hour. If Hendley hadn't carried
with him an all-too vivid memory of the violence that could occur in
the Freeman Camp, he would have been sure his companion was joking.
"I keep forgetting," Nik said. "You don't have crime outside, do you?"
"There are rules infractions, of course," Hendley said, "but nothing
like what you're suggesting." Hearing again in his imagination the soft
scuffling sound floating from the dark path, he gave a shudder. What
had caused the noise? Running footsteps? Fighting?
"There is some individual crime here," Nik said casually. "Robberies,
mostly, or sexual attacks. But lately there's been more and more
trouble with gangs. Unruly packs who roam the parks and back streets at
night."
"Robbers?" Hendley asked in disbelief, finding the concept difficult to
accept.
But the young Freeman slowly shook his head. His smile was sardonic.
"They're called Pleasure Packs," he said. "Robbery is only a
superficial motive, if at all. I guess you'd say they're just looking
for something different." He searched for a way to make Hendley
understand. "It's like sex. You wouldn't expect sex crimes here.
There's plenty of entertainment available along that line. There are
the PIB's and the showgirls--you'll see them later. But after a while
the ordinary thing isn't enough. That's one of our major problems...."
Nik's voice trailed off, as if he had suddenly become aware of what
he was saying and regretted his frankness. "We change here," he said
abruptly, executing a nimble jump to an intersecting walk that rode off
at a tangent from the main street.
Following his new friend awkwardly, favoring his stiff knee, Hendley
puzzled over his words. There had been too many revelations to
absorb all at once. Surely the crimes NIK-700 had mentioned must be
isolated instances. The whole life of the Organization, all human
pursuit, rested on the base of freedom's desirability, its ultimate
satisfactions. The suggestion that it could give rise to a kind of
anarchy, that Freemen would seek to dispel boredom and ennui with
barbarous acts of violence, left Hendley with an uneasy feeling, as if
a firm surface had quite illogically, unaccountably, turned spongy and
uncertain underfoot.
The moving walk wound along a street dividing the entertainment center
from the rows of low-level housing. Hendley wondered if, with so little
time left to him, he would spend much of it in the bright and airy room
assigned to him. Along their way Nik pointed out places of special
interest. "People tend to seek out their own kind, wherever they are,"
he said. "See that cafe? You'll find scientists there mostly. A strange
lot. Stick to themselves, and most of them never go to the casinos or
the shows. They've rigged up a regular laboratory--taken over one of
the rec halls--and they dabble in experiments of one kind or another.
Useless, of course, with the limited equipment they have, but it seems
to keep some of them happy. That gray building is one of the old clubs.
You'd probably find my father there. All the old-timers belong. Of
course, in theory everything in the camp is open to everybody, but
that isn't the way it works out. You're just not welcome in the club
until you've been here years and years." Nik spoke with a trace of
contempt. "They have their private parties and their ritualistic games.
I'm a member really, by birthright, but I seldom go there. Last time
I went my mother was playing one of their little games." He laughed
mirthlessly. "She was trying to take off her uniform while riding in
a rubber raft in the pool, without tipping the thing over. If you got
dunked, that made you fair prey." He glanced at Hendley sharply, almost
suspiciously, as if he were afraid of laughter. "She didn't remember
me," he added curtly, "but I think she'd been on the Weed."
Hendley's head whirled. The complexities of Freeman behavior left him
bewildered. He doubted that he could ever be restless here. There
was too much to do and enjoy without needing to seek out artificial
stimulants and bizarre pleasures. But could he be wrong? Did he know
even himself that well? Everything seemed to change in the perspective
of freedom....
"Here we are," Nik said, leaving the walk.
They stopped before a low, circular, relatively small building from
which came a remarkable volume of sound. As they entered, the noise
burst over them like the resounding coda of a symphony. The main
orchestration was supplied by human voices erupting in every range of
pitch and intensity. Behind these could be heard the whine and sigh of
a computer band. And, bursting up through a center stairwell around
which wound a circular escalator, to crash against Hendley's ears
like a solid wave, came an instrumental thunder of party noises: the
explosion of falling glass, the shudder of the overloaded stairway
straining with its burden, the shifting of a hundred feet, shrieks and
shouts and trills of laughter.