David Brin - Natulife

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2024-11-20 1 0 64.49KB 17 页 5.9玖币

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DAVID BRIN

NATULIFE

I KNOW, THINGS TASTE BETTER fresh, not packaged. Hamburger clots your arteries

and hurts the rain forest. We should eat like our stone age ancestors, who dug

roots, got lots of exercise, and always stayed a little hungry. So they say.

Still, I balked when my wife served me termites.

"Come on, sweetheart. Try one. They're delicious."

Gaia already had the hive uncrated and set up by the time I came home. Putting

down my briefcase, I stared at hundreds of the pasty-colored critters

scrabbling

under a plastic cover, tending their fat queen, devouring kitchen trimmings,

making themselves right at home in my home.

Gaia offered me a probe made of fine-grained pseudowood. "See? You use this

stick to fish after nice plump ones, like chimpanzees do in the wild!"

I gaped at the insect habitat, filling the last free space between our

veggiehydrator and the meat-sublimate racks. "But . . . we agreed. Our

apartment's too small . . . "

"Oh, sweety, I know you'll just love them. Anyway, don't I need protein and

vitamins for the baby?"

Putting my hand over her swelling belly normally softened any objections I

might

have. Only this time my own stomach was in rebellion. "I thought you already

got

all that stuff from the Yeast-Beast machine." I pointed to the vat occupying

half of our guest bathroom, venting nutritious vapors from racks of tissue-

grown

cutlets.

"That stuff's not natural," Gaia complained with a moue. "Come on, try the

real

thing. It's just like they show on the NatuLife Channel!"

"I . . . don't think . . . "

"Watch, I'll show you!"

Gaia passed the stick-probe through a sealed hatch to delve after six-legged

prey, her tongue popping out as she concentrated, quivering with excitement

from

her red ponytail down to her rounded belly. "Got one!" she cried, drawing a

twitching insect out the hatch and to her lips.

"You're not seriously . . . " My throat stopped as the termite vanished, head

first.

Bliss crossed Gaia's face. "M-m-m, crunchy!" She smacked, revealing a

still-twitching tail.

I found enough manly dignity to raggedly chastise her.

"Don't . . . talk with your mouth full."

Turning away, I added -- "If you need me, I'll be in my workout room."

Gaia had rearranged our sleep quarters again. Now the cramped chamber merged

seamlessly with a tropical paradise, including raucous bird calls and mist

from

a roaring waterfall. The impressive effects made it hard navigating past the

bed, so I ordered the hologram blanked. Silence fell as the vid-wall turned

gray, leaving just the real-life portion of her pocket jungle to contend with

a tangle of potted plants warrantied to give off purer oxygen than a pregnant

woman could sniff from bottles.

Wading through creepers and mutant ficuses, I finally found the moss-lined

laundry hamper and threw in my work clothes. The fragrant Clean-U-Lichen had

already sani-scavenged and folded my exercise togs, which felt warm and

skin-supple when I drew them on. The organo-electric garment rippled across my

skin as if alive, seeming just as eager for a workout as I was.

I'd been through hell at the office. Traffic on the commuter-tube was

miserable

and the smog index had been red-lining for a week. Termites had only been the

last straw.

"Let's go," I muttered. "I haven't killed anything all day."

Long Stick spotted a big old buck gazelle.

"It limps," my hunting partner said, rising from his haunches to point across

hundred yards of dry savannah. "Earlier, it met a lion."

I rose from my stretching exercises to peer past a screen of sheltering

boulders, following Long Stick's gnarly arm. One animal stood apart from the

herd. Sniffing an unsteady breeze, the buck turned to show livid claw marks

along one flank. Clearly, this prey was a pushover compared to last Sunday's

pissed-off rhino. The virtual reality machine must have sensed I'd had a rough

day.

My hands stroked the spear, tracing its familiar nicks and knots. An illusion

raw, archetypal power.

"The beaters are ready, Chief," my hunting partner said. I nodded.

"Let's get on with it."

Long Stick pursed his lips and mimicked the call of a bee-catcher bird.

Moments

later, the animals snorted as a shift in the heavy air brought insinuations of

human scent. Another hundred yards beyond the herd, where the sparse pampas

faded into a hazy stand of acacia trees, I glimpsed the rest of our hunting

party, creeping forward.

My hunters. My tribe.

I was tempted to reach up and adjust the virtu-reality helmet, which fed this

artificial world to my eyes and ears . . . to zoom in on those distant human

images. Alas, except for Long Stick, I had never met any of the other hunters

close. Good persona programs aren't cheap, and with a baby coming, there were

other things for Gaia and me to spend money on.

Yeah, like a cramroy termite hive! Resentment fed on surging adrenaline. Never

trust a gatherer. That was the hunters' creed. Love 'era, protect 'era, die

for

them, but always remember, their priorities are different.

The beaters stood as one, shouting. The gazelles reared, wheeling the other

way

-- toward us. Long Stick hissed. "Here they come!"

The Accu-Terrain floor thrummed beneath my feet to the charge of a hundred

hooves. Sensu-Surround earphones brought the stampede roar of panicky beasts

thundering toward us, wild-eyed with ardor to survive.

Clutching my spear in sweaty palms, I crouched as graceful animals vaulted

overhead, ribcages heaving.

Meanwhile, a faint, subsonic mantra recited. I am part of nature . . . one

with

nature . . .

The young, and breeding females, we let flash by without harm. But then,

trailing and already foaming with fatigue, came the old buck, its leap leaden,

unsteady, and I knew the program really was taking it easy on me today.

Long Stick howled. I sprinted from cover, swiftly taking the lead. The

auto-treadmill's bumps and gullies matched whatever terrain the goggles showed

me, so my feet knew how to land and thrust off again. The body suit brushed my

skin with synthetic wind. Flared nostrils inhaled sweat, exhilaration, and for

time I forgot I was in a tiny room on the eightieth floor of a suburban

Chitown

con-apt, surrounded by fifty million neighbors.

I was deep in the past of my forebears, back in a time when men were few, and

therefore precious, magical.

Back when nature thrived . . . and included us.

Easy workout or no, I got up a good sweat before the beast was cornered

against

a stand of jagged saw grass. The panting gazelle's black eye met mine with

than resignation. In it I saw tales of past battles and matings. Of countless

struggles won, and finally lost. I couldn't have felt more sympathy if he'd

been

real.

My throwing arm cranked and I thought -- Long ago, I'd have done this to feed

wife and child.

That was then. As for here and now?

Well . . . this sure beats the hell out of racquetball.

Mass-produced con-apt housing lets twelve billion Earthlings live in minim

decency, at the cost of dwelling all our lives in boxes piled halfway to the

sky. Lotteries award scarce chances to visit mountains, the seashore.

Meanwhile,

Virtuality keeps us sane within our hi-rise caves.

On my way to shower after working out, I saw that Gaia's private VR room was

use. Impulsively, I tiptoed into the closet next door, feeling for the crack

between stacked room units, and pressed my eye close to the narrow chink of

light. Gaia squatted on her treadmill floor, shaped to mimic a patch of uneven

ground. Her body suit fit her pregnant form like a second skin, while helmet

and

goggles made her resemble some kind of bug, or star alien. But I knew her

scenario, like mine, lay in the distant past. She made digging motions with a

phantom tool, invisible to me, held in her cupped hands. Then she reached down

to pluck another ghost item, her gloves simulating touch to match whatever

root

or tuber it was that she saw through the goggles. Gala pantomimed brushing

dirt

away from her find, then dropping it into a bag at her side.

Sometimes, eavesdropping like this, I'd feel a chill wondering how odd I must

look during workouts, leaping about, brandishing invisible spears and shouting

at my "hunters." No wonder most people keep VR so private.

Gaia tilted her head as if listening to somebody, then laughed aloud. "I know!

Didn't the two of them look funny? Coming home all proud with that skinny

little

squirrel on a stick? Such great hunters! That didn't stop them from gobbling

half our carrots!"

Naturally, I couldn't see or hear Gaia's companions --presumably other women

gatherers in the same simulated tribe she had been visiting since years before

we met. She stopped again, listening, then turned around. "It's your baby,

Flower. That's okay, I'll take care of him." She laughed. "I need the

practice."

I watched her gently pick up an invisible child. Her body suit tugged and

contracted, mimicking a wriggly weight in her arms. Awkwardly, Gala cooed at

infant who dwelled only in a world of software, and her mind. I crept away to

take a shower, at once ashamed of spying and glad that I had.

Toweling my wet hair, I entered the bedroom to find the wall screen tuned to

Mother Earth Channel Fifty-Three -- a green-robed priestess reciting a sermon.

" . . . returning to more natural ways does not mean having to sacrifice nil

modern . . . ."

Gaia emerged from her closet wearing a bright cotton shift over her blossoming

figure, sorting through a cloth bag slung over one shoulder. "Where are you

going?" I tried asking, but the life-sized matron on the wall was doubly loud.

" . . . we should eat like our ancestors, who caught meat but twice a week or

so. All other food was gathered by skilled women . . . . "

I tugged Gaia's elbow, repeating my question. She startled, then smiled at me.

"NatuBirth class, Sweetheart. Lots to learn before I'm ready. Just two months

left, you know."

"But I thought . . . "

" . . . Fats and sweets were rare back then, hence our cravings. Now

self-discipline must take the place of scarcity -- "

I shouted. "Computer! Shut off that noise!"

The priestess's mouth moved silently. Gaia looked reproving.

"I don't like being left out," I complained.

Gaia stroked my face. "Oh Toms, don't be off-baud. We're just covering nest

and

birthing methods, tonight. A man would be bored."

Hm. Maybe. Femismo says there are some things men can't understand. Quite a

shift from the way old-fashioned feminism preached sharing all life's duties.

dad used to proudly tell of cutting the cord, the day I was born. I kind of

liked that idea, but now they call it unnatural. Birth has always been a

female

ritual. That's what they say.

"You just stay home, be good, and . . . " Gaia pressed against me,

affectionately, her eyes lighting. "You had a good hunt, didn't you? I can

tell.

It always leaves you frisky."

I pulled away. "Mph. Go to class, then. I'll be okay."

She tiptoed to kiss my chin. "Look by the console for a present . . .

something

to show I haven't forgotten you." Gala blew another kiss from the front door,

and was gone.

I wandered over to the master house controller and picked up a brightly

colored

program plaq, still tacky where Gaia must have peeled off a discount sticker

from the NatuLife Store. Something for the Hunter, the title read, and I

snorted. Right. Something to keep the man of the house distracted beating

drums

with a bunch of make-believe comrades, while a wife's attention turns to

serious

matters -- nesting and the continuity of life. The blyware gift might have

been

meant as a loving gesture, but right then it made me feel superfluous, more

left

out than ever.

Sliding the plaq into the console, I accidentally brushed the volume knob and

the booming voice of the priestess returned.

" . . . must face the fact that Earth's billions won't accept returning to

nature by scratching mud and sleeping on dirt floors. We must learn new ways,

both more natural and smarter . . . . "

I snickered at that. Funny how each generation thinks it knows what "smarter"

means.

LONG STICK greeted me with a sweeping bow, at once both sardonic and

respectful.

"Welcome back, oh Great Chief."

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered at my simulated sidekick. "Okay, I'll bite. What's

different, this time?"

Everything seemed less real here in the living room, with my virtuality helmet

and body suit left hanging in the closet. The familiar, primeval forest of my

private world now cut off sharply where the vial-wall met the couch. Yet, I

could have sworn my ersatz companion seemed subtler, warmer, somehow.

"The flint-smiths are ready to show their wares, chief."

"The who . . . ?" I began. But Long Stick simply turned to begin striding down

nearby path. The living room had no treadmill-floor, so I stood still,

watching

Long Stick's buckskin-draped form plow past trees and boulders and down a

series

of switchbacks. A rhythmic sound grew steadily louder--a tinny clatter of

brittle objects colliding and breaking. Finally, we reached a sandy streambed

where several figures could be seen sitting on logs, hammering stones

together.

Oh, yes. Flint-smiths. NatuLife stocked countless "You-Are-There" programs in

all the ancient arts, from bronze casting to automobile design. With our

shared

interest in the Neolithic, Gala had cleverly bought a stone age simulation the

computer could fit right into my private world, to help me pass an evening

while

she trained for motherhood.

Okay, I sighed. Let's get on with it.

A youngster with a wispy beard noticed us, stopped hammering, and nudged the

others -- a weathered old man and a sturdy-looking fellow with one leg much

shorter than the other. The smiths rose and bowed respectfully. Naturally,

these

wouldn't be full scale sim-personas, like Long Stick, but animated actors in a

limited scenario.

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David Brin - Natulife

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