Robert Silverberg - The World Inside

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The World Inside
By Robert Silverberg
#A0001-0005
URBAN MONAD 116: A lofty spire a thousand stories high where 880,000 souls live out their perfectly
regulated lives in peace and plenty. But inside this glorious world are a few who dare to doubt and dream:
AUREA HOLSTON, beautiful young bride, who fears leaving the only world she's ever known;
DILLON CHRIMES, cosmos group popstar, who becomes one with the urbmon in an orgiastic, mind-shattering
trip;
JASON QUEVEDO, historian, who gets his kicks from the perverse savagery of an earlier age;
SIEGMUND KLUVER, virile young man-on-the-way-up, who sees the nightmare behind the urbmon's shining
facade;
and MICHAEL STATLER, who dares to escape …
A harrowing vision of humanity's future!
For Ejler Jakobsson
We were born to unite with our fellow-men and to join
in community with the human race.
Cicero: De finibus, IV
Of all animals, men are the least fitted to live to herds.
If they were crowded together as sheep are they would all
perish in a short time. The breath of man is fatal to his
fellows.
Jean-Jacquea Rousseau: Emile, I
ONE
Here begins a happy day in 2381. The morning sun is high enough to touch the uppermost
fifty stories of Urban Monad 116. Soon the building's entire eastern face will glitter like the
bosom of the sea at daybreak. Charles Mattern's window, activated by the dawn's early
photons, deopaques. He stirs. God bless, he thinks. His wife yawns and stretches. His four
children, who have been awake for hours, now can officially start their day. They rise and
parade around the bedroom, singing:
God bless, god bless, god bless!
God bless us every one!
God bless Daddo, god bless Mommo, god bless you and me!
God bless us all, the short and tall,
Give us fer-til-i-tee!
They rush toward their parents' sleeping platform. Mattern rises and embraces them. Indra
is eight, Sandor is seven, Marx is five, Cleo is three. It is Charles Mattern's secret shame that
his family is so small. Can a man with only four children truly be said to have reverence for
life? But Principessa's womb no longer flowers. The medics have declared that she will not
bear again. At twenty-seven she is sterile. Mattern is thinking of taking in a second woman.
He longs to hear the yowls of an infant again; in any case, a man must do his duty to god.
Sandor says, "Daddo, Siegmund is still here."
The child points. Mattern sees. On Principessa's side of the sleeping platform, curled
against the inflation pedal, lies fourteen-year-old Siegmund Kluver, who had entered the
Mattern home several hours after midnight to exercise his rights of propinquity. Siegmund is
fond of older women. He has become quite notorious in the past few months. Now he snores;
he has had a good workout. Mattern nudges him. "Siegmund? Siegmund, it's morning!" The
young man's eyes open. He smiles at Mattern, sits up, reaches for his wrap. He is quite
handsome. He lives on the 787th floor and already has one child and another on the way.
"Sorry," says. Siegmund. "I overslept. Principessa really drains me. A savage, she is!"
"Yes, she's quite passionate," Mattern agrees. So is Siegmund's wife, Mamelon, according
to what Mattern has heard. When she is a little older, Mattern plans to try her. Next spring,
perhaps.
Siegmund sticks his head under the molecular cleanser. Principessa now has left the bed.
Nodding faintly to her husband, she kicks the pedal and the platform deflates swiftly. She
begins to program breakfast. Indra, reaching forth a pale, almost transparent little hand,
switches on the screen. The wall blossoms with light and color. "Good morning," says the
screen heartily. "The external temperature, if anybody's interested, is 28°. Today's population
figure at Urbmon 116 is 881,115, which is + 102 since yesterday and + 14,187 since the first
of the year. God bless, but we're slowing down! Across the way at Urbmon 117 they've added
131 since yesterday, including quads for Mrs. Hula Jabotinsky. She's eighteen and has had
seven previous. A servant of god, isn't she? The time is now 0620. In exactly forty minutes
Urbmon 116 will be honored by the presence of Nicanor Gortman, the visiting
sociocomputator from Hell, who can be recognized by his distinctive outbuilding costume in
crimson and ultraviolet. Dr. Gortman will be the guest of the Charles Matterns of the 799th
floor. Of course we'll treat him with the same friendly blessmanship we show one another.
God bless Nicanor Gortman! Turning now to news from the lower levels of Urbmon 116 —"
Principessa says, "Hear that, children? We'll have a guest, and we must be blessworthy
toward him. Come and eat."
When he has cleansed himself, dressed, and breakfasted, Charles Mattern goes to the
thousandth-floor landing stage to meet Nicanor Gortman. As he rises through the building to
the summit, Mattern passes the floors on which his brothers and sisters and their families live.
Three brothers, three sisters. Four of them younger than he, two older. All quite successful.
One brother died, unpleasantly, young. Jeffrey. Mattern rarely thinks of Jeffrey. Now he is
passing through the floors that make up Louisville, the administrative sector. In a moment he
will meet his guest. Gortman has been touring the tropics and is about to visit a typical urban
monad in the temperate zone. Mattern is honored to have been named the official host. He
steps out on the landing stage, which is at the very tip of Urbmon 116. A force-field shields
him from the fierce winds that sweep the lofty spire. He looks at his left and sees the western
face of Urban Monad 115 still in darkness. To his right, Urbmon 117's eastern windows
sparkle. Bless Mrs. Hula Jabotinsky and her eleven littles, Mattern thinks. Mattern can see
other urbmons in the row, stretching on and on toward the horizon, towers of super-stressed
concrete three kilometers high, tapering ever so gracefully. It is a thrilling sight. God bless,
he thinks. God bless, god bless, god bless!
He hears a cheerful hum of rotors. A quickboat is landing. Out steps a tall, sturdy man
dressed in high-spectrum garb. He must surely be the visiting sociocomputator from Hell.
"Nicanor Gortman?" Mattern asks.
"Bless god. Charles Mattern?"
"God bless, yes. Come."
Hell is one of the eleven cities of Venus, which man has reshaped to suit himself.
Gortman has never been on Earth before. He speaks is a slow, stolid way, no lilt in his voice
at all; the inflection reminds Mattern of the way they talk in Urbmon 84, which Mattern once
visited on a field trip. He has read Gortman's papers: solid stuff, closely reasoned. "I
particularly liked 'Dynamics of the Hunting Ethic,'" Mattern tells him while they are in the
dropshaft. "Remarkable. A revelation."
"You really mean that?" Gortman asks, flattered.
"Of course. I try to keep up with the better Venusian journals. It's so fascinating to read
about alien customs. Such as hunting wild animals."
"There are none on Earth?"
"God bless, no," Mattern says. "We couldn't allow that! But I love gaining insight into
different ways of life."
"My essays are escape literature for you?" asks Gortman.
Mattern looks at him strangely. "I don't understand the reference."
"Escape literature. What you read to make life on Earth more bearable for yourself."
"Oh, no. Life on Earth is quite bearable, let me assure you. There's no need for escape
literature. I study offworld journals for amusement. And to obtain a necessary parallax, you
know, for my own work," says Mattern. They have reached the 799th level. "Let me show
you my home first." He steps from the dropshaft and beckons to Gortman. "This is Shanghai.
I mean, that's what we call this block of forty floors, from 761 to '800. I'm in the next-to-top
level of Shanghai, which is a mark of my professional status. We've got twenty-five cities
altogether in Urbmon 116. Reykjavik's on the bottom and Louisville's on the top.
"What determines the names?"
"Citizen vote. Shanghai used to be Calcutta, which I personally prefer, but a little bunch
of malcontents on the 778th floor rammed through a referendum in '75"
"I thought you had no malcontents in the urban monads," Gortman says.
Mattern smiles. "Not in the usual sense. But we allow certain conflicts to exist. Man
wouldn't be man without conflicts, eh? Even here. Eh?"
They are walking down the eastbound corridor toward Mattern's home. It is now 0710,
and children are streaming from their apartments in groups of three and four, rushing to get to
school. Mattern waves to them. They sing as they run along. Mattern says, "We average 6.2
children per family on this floor. It's one of the lowest figures in the building, I have to admit.
High-status people don't seem to breed well. They've got a floor in Prague — I think it's 117
— that averages 9.9 per family! Isn't that glorious?"
"You are speaking with irony?" Gortman asks.
"Not at all." Mattern feels an uptake of tension. "We like children. We approve of
breeding. Surely you realized that before you set out on this tour of —"
"Yes, yes," says Gortman, hastily. "I was aware of the general cultural dynamic. But I
thought perhaps your own attitude —"
"Ran counter to norm? Just because I have a scholar's detachment. You shouldn't assume
that I disapprove in any way of my cultural matrix. Perhaps you're guilty of projecting your
own disapproval, eh?"
"I regret the implication. And please don't think I feel the slightest negative attitudes in
relation to your matrix, although I admit your world seems quite strange to me. Bless god, let
us not have strife, Charles."
"God bless, Nicanor. I didn't mean to seem touchy."
They smile. Mattern is dismayed by his show of irritability.
Gortman says, "What is the population of the 799th floor?"
"805, last I heard."
"And of Shanghai?"
"About 33,000."
"And of Urbmon 116?"
"881,000."
"And there are fifty urban monads in this constellation of houses?"
"Yes."
"Making some 40,000,00O people," Gortman says. "Or somewhat more than the entire
human population of Venus. Remarkable!"
"And this isn't the biggest constellation, not by any means!" Mattern's voice rings with
pride. "Sansan is bigger, and so is Boshwash! And there are several larger ones in Europe —
Berpar, Wienbud, I think two others. With more being planned!"
"A global population of —"
"— 75,000,000,000," Mattern cries. "God bless! There's never been anything like it! No
one goes hungry! Everybody happy! Plenty of open space! God's been good to us, Nicanor!"
He pauses before a door libeled 79915. "Here's my home. What I have is yours, dear guest."
They go in.
Mattern's home is quite adequate. We has nearly ninety square meters of floor space. The
sleeping platform deflates; the children cots retracts; the furniture can easily be moved to
provide play area. Most of the room, in fact, is empty. The screen and the data terminal
occupy two-dimensional areas of wall that in an earlier era had to be taken up by bulky
television sets, bookcases, desks, file drawers, and other encumbrances. It is an airy, spacious
environment, particularly for a family of just six.
The children have not yet left for school; Principessa has held them back, to meet the
guest, and so they are restless. As Mattern enters, Sandor and Indra are struggling over a
cherished toy, the dream-stirrer. Mattern is astounded. Conflict in the home? Silently, so their
mother will not notice, they fight. Sandor hammers his shoes into his sister's shins. Indra,
wincing, claws her brother's cheek. "God bless," Mattern says sharply. "Somebody wants to
go down the chute, eh?" The children gasp. The toy drops. Everyone stands at attention.
Principessa looks up, brushing a lock of dark hair from her eyes; six has been busy with the
youngest child and has not even heard them come in.
Mattern says, "Conflict sterilizes. Apologize to each other."
Indra and Sandor kiss and smile. Meekly Indra picks up the toy and hands it to Mattern,
who gives it to his younger son, Marx. They are all staring now at the guest. Mattern says to
Gortman, "What I have is yours, friend,." He makes introductions. Wife, children. The scene
of conflict has unnerved him a little, but he is relieved when Gortman produce four small
boxes and distributes them to the children. Toys. A blessful gesture. Mattern points to the
deflated platform. "This is where we sleep," he explains. "There's ample room for three. We
wash at the cleanser, here. Do you like privacy when voiding waste matter?"
"Please, yes."
"You press this button for the privacy shield. We excrete in this. Urine here, feces there.
Everything is reprocessed, you understand. We're a thrifty folk in the urbmons."
"Of course," Gortman says.
Principessa says, "Do you prefer that we use the shield when we excrete? I understand
some outbuilding people do."
"I would not want to impose my customs on you," says Gortman.
Smiling, Mattern says, "We're a post-privacy culture, naturally. But it wouldn't be any
trouble for us to press the button, if —" He falters. A troublesome new thought. "There's no
general nudity taboo on Venus, is there? I mean, we have only this one room, and —"
"I am adaptable," Gortman insists. "A trained sociocomputator must be a cultural
relativist, of course!"
"Of course," Mattern agrees, and he laughs nervously.
Principessa excuses herself from the conversation and sends the children, still clutching
their new toys, off to school.
Mattern says, "Forgive me for being overobvious, but I must bring up the matter of your
sexual prerogatives. We three will share a single platform. My wife is available to you, as am
I. Within the urbmon it is improper to refuse any reasonable request, so long as no injury is
involved. Avoidance of frustration, you see, is the primary rule of a society such as ours,
where even minor frictions could lead to uncontrollable oscillations of disharmony. And do
you know our custom of nightwalking?"
"I'm afraid I —"
"Doors are not locked in Urbmon 116. We have no personal property worth guarding, and
we all are socially adjusted. At night it is quite proper to enter other homes. We exchange
partners in this way all the time; usually wives stay home and husbands migrate, though not
necessarily. Each of us has access at any time to any other adult member of our community."
"Strange," says Gortman. "I'd think that is a society where there are so many people living
so close together; an exaggerated respect for privacy would develop; rather than a communal
freedom.
"In the beginning we had many notions of privacy. God bless, they were allowed to
erode! Avoidance of frustration must be our goal, otherwise impossible tensions develop.
And privacy is frustration."
"So you can go into any room in this whole gigantic building and sleep with —"
"Not the whole building," Mattern says, interrupting. "Only Shanghai. We frown on
nightwalking beyond one's own city." He chuckles. "We do impose a few little restrictions on
ourselves, you see, so that our freedoms don't pall."
Gortman turns toward Principessa. She wears a loinband and metallic cup over her left
breast. She is slender but voluptuously constructed, and even though her childbearing days
are over she has not lost the sensual glow of young womanhood. Mattern is proud of her,
despite everything.
Mattern says, "Shall we begin our tour of the building?"
They go toward the door. Gortman bows gracefully to Principessa as he and Mattern
leave. In the corridor, the visitor says, "Your family is smaller than the norm, I see."
It is an excruciatingly impolite statement, but Mattern is able to be tolerant of his guest's
faux pas. Mildly he replies, "We would have had more children, but my wife's fertility had to
be terminated surgically. It was a great tragedy for us."
"You have always valued large families here?"
"We value life. To create new life is the highest virtue. To prevent life from coming into
being is the darkest sin. We all love our big bustling world. Does it seem unendurable to you?
Do we seem unhappy?"
"You seem surprisingly well adjusted," Gortman says. "Considering that —" He stops.
"Go on."
"Considering that there are so many of you. And that you spend your whole lives inside a
single colossal building. You never do go out, do you?"
"Most of us never do," Mattern admits. "I have traveled, of course — a sociocomputator
needs perspective, obviously. But Principessa has never left the building. I believe she has
never been below the 350th floor, except when she was taken to see the lower levels while
she was in school. Why should she go anywhere? The secret of our happiness is to create
self-contained villages of five or six. floors within the cities of forty floors, within the
urbmons of a thousand floors. We have no sensation of being overcrowded or cramped. We
know our neighbors, we have hundreds of dear friends; we are kind and loyal and
blessworthy to one another."
"And everybody remains happy forever?"
"Nearly everybody."
"Who are the exceptions?" Gortman asks.
"The flippos," says Mattern. "We endeavor to minimize the friction of living in such an
environment; as you see, we never deny one another anything, we never thwart a reasonable
desire. But sometimes there are those who abruptly decide they can no longer abide by our
principles. They flip; they thwart others; they rebel. It is quite sad."
"What do you do with flippos?"
"We remove them, of course," Mattern says. He smiles, and they enter the dropshaft once
again.
Mattern has been authorized to show Gortman the entire urbmon, a tour, that will take
several days. He is a little apprehensive; he is not as familiar with some parts of the structure
as a guide should be. But he will do his best.
"The building," he says, "is made of superstressed concrete. It is constructed about a
central service core two hundred meters square. Originally, the plan was to have fifty families
per floor, but we average about 120 today, and the old apartments have all been subdivided
into single-room occupancies. We are wholly self-sufficient, with our own schools, hospitals,
sports arenas, houses of worship, and theaters."
"Food?"
"We produce none, of course. But we have contractual access to the agricultural
communes. I'm sure you've seen that nearly nine tenths of the land area of this continent is
used for food production; and then there are the marine farms. Oh, we have plenty of food on
this planet, now that we no longer waste space by spreading out horizontally over good land."
"But aren't you at the mercy of the food-producing communes?"
"When were city-dwellers not at the mercy of farmers?" Mattern asks. "But you seem to
regard life on Earth as an affair of fang and claw. Actually the ecology of our world is neatly
in mesh. We are vital to the farmer -- their only market, their only source of manufactured
goods. They are vital to us — our only source of food. Reciprocal indispensabilities, eh? And
the system works. We could support many billions of additional people. Someday, god
blessing, we will."
The dropshaft, coasting downward through the building, glides into its anvil at the very
bottom. Mattern feels the oppressive bulk of the whole urbmon over him, and is vaguely
surprised by the intensity of his distress; he tries not to show that he is uneasy. He says, "The
foundation of the structure is four hundred meters deep. We are now at the lowest level. Here
we generate our power." They cross a catwalk and peer into an immense generating room,
forty meters from floor to ceiling, in which sleek green turbines whirl. "Most of our power is
obtained," he points out, "through combustion of compacted solid refuse. We burn everything
we don't need, and sell the residue as fertilizer. We have auxiliary generators that work on
accumulated body heat, also."
"I was wondering about that," Gortman murmurs. "What you do with the heat."
Cheerily Mattern says, "Obviously 800,000 people within one sealed enclosure will
produce an immense thermal surplus. Some of this heat is directly radiated from the building
through cooling fins along the outer surface. Some is piped down here and used to run the
generator. In winter, of course, we pump it evenly through the building to maintain
temperature. The rest of the excess heat is used in water purification and similar things."
They peer at the electrical system for a while. Then Mattern leads the way to the
reprocessing plant. Several hundred schoolchildren are touring it; silently the two men join
the tour.
The teacher says, "Here's where the urine comes down, see?" She points to gigantic
plastic pipes. "It passes through the flash chamber to be distilled, and the pure water is drawn
off here — follow me, now — you remember from the flow chart, the part about how we
recover the chemicals and sell them to the farming communes —"
Mattern and his guest inspect the fertilizer plant, too, where fecal reconversion is taking
place. Gortman asks a number of questions. He seems deeply interested. Mattern is pleased;
there is nothing more significant to him than the details of the urbmon way of life, and he had
feared that this stranger from Venus, from a place where men live in private houses and walk
around in the open, would regard the urbmon way as repugnant or hideous.
They go onward. Mattern speaks of air-conditioning, the system of dropshafts and
liftshafts, and other such topics.
"It's all wonderful," Gortman says. "I couldn't imagine how one little planet with
75,000,000,000 people could even survive, but you've turned it into — into —"
"Utopia?" Mattern suggests.
"I meant to say that, yes," says Gortman.
Power production and waste disposal are not really Mattern's specialties. He knows how
such things are handled here, but only because the workings of the urbmon are so enthralling
to him. His real field of study is sociocomputation, after all, and he has been asked to show
the visitor how the social structure of the giant building is organized. Now they go up, into
the residential levels.
"This is Reykjavik," Mattern announces. "Populated chiefly by maintenance workers. We
try not to have too much status stratification, but each city does have its predominant
摘要：

TheWorldInsideByRobertSilverberg#A0001-0005URBANMONAD116:Aloftyspireathousandstorieshighwhere880,000soulsliveouttheirperfectlyregulatedlivesinpeaceandplenty.Butinsidethisgloriousworldareafewwhodaretodoubtanddream:AUREAHOLSTON,beautifulyoungbride,whofearsleavingtheonlyworldshe'severknown;DILLONCHRIME...

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