Out of Phaze

Even so, it was more than he could grasp. History turned out to be not a single and straightforward process, but a complex tapestry of events. Citizens lost their positions, and new ones came into being; the mining of Protonite, the key resource of the planet, suffered a severe readjustment as cutbacks ordered by Citizen Blue took effect.

Citizen Blue! “Follow him!” Bane exclaimed.

So Mach’s father appeared. It seemed that he had more money or power than any other Citizen, so could make his will felt most effectively. He married Sheen, the humanoid robot female; this caused a furor. He required that the self-willed humanoid robots be granted serf status. Later he did the same for the most advanced humanoid androids, and for the humanoid cyborgs. Each such step was fought resolutely by the Contrary Citizens. Most recently he had done it for the aliens: those sapient creatures who could assume human form and mix with human beings on an equal intellectual and social basis.

“Agape,” he murmured, understanding her position in this at last.

The screen heard him. “Agape,” it said, showing a picture. “Sapient creature of Planet Moeba, first representative of this species participating in the Experimental Culture Project.”

“I didn’t mean to show her; I was just commenting,” Bane said. The screen returned to its prior business, describing the things that Citizen Blue had initiated in the past twenty years in Proton. It was an impressive listing; more changes had occurred in this period than in the prior two hundred years. The Experimental Culture Project was intended to enable the diverse types of sapient creatures to integrate their society without adverse pressures. Ordinary serfs were required to become the employees of individual Citizens at maturity, and were thereafter subject to the arbitrary will of those employers. The Experimentals had no such requirement; they were considered to be the employees of Proton itself, with no requirements. They were free to do what they wished, within their own section. When they went beyond it, they had to observe the normal forms, deferring in all things to Citizens, and not interfering with the activities of ordinary serfs.

“But what is the point?” Bane asked. He knew that idlers would not survive long in Phaze, and doubted they would be tolerated long in Proton.

‘The point is to ascertain whether the diverse species can successfully integrate,” the screen replied. “If this is affirmative, the entire society will be similarly integrated. There will be no distinctions between species or types, only between serf-status and Citizen status. Machines and aliens will have equal access to the benefits of Proton society.”

Bane nodded. This made sense to him. He would not have known how well unicorns and human beings could get along together, after centuries of noninvolvement with each other, if he had not known Neysa and Fleta.

Now he was learning how pleasant it could be to know an alien creature.

He glanced at the bed where Agape lay—and paused, astonished. She was there, but her form was not. She had become a mound of dark jelly that spread across the bed like so much spilled pudding. Only its cohesion and continuing quiver distinguished it from inanimate substance. She really was an amoeba: a blob of protoplasm.

Should he be revolted? He decided not to be. He had seen Fleta change to her natural unicorn form many times, and to her other hummingbird form, and back to girl form. That was interesting, not revolting; why should this be different? Agape had not concealed her nature from him, she had only tried to spare his feelings, because it seemed that other human beings had been upset by her true form. But he had come to know her mind and her personality, and he liked these. She was quite different from himself, physically; what did it matter?

He had had enough of education for now. He asked the screen for entertainment, and was rewarded by a “light-show” of phenomenal color and complexity. The lights brightened and dimmed, radiated out and in, changed shape and color, and assumed odd and fleeting shapes. Sometimes Bane, the viewer, seemed to be flying into a rapidly expanding bank of clouds; sometimes he seemed to be swimming in strange water. The configurations never repeated; he kept being surprised by what happened next.