This Perfect Day Read online

  Chip said, “Don’t you—like UniComp?”

  Papa Jan was silent for a moment. “No, I don’t,” he said, and cleared his throat. “You can’t argue with it, you can’t explain things to it . . .”

  “But it knows everything,” Chip said. “What’s there to explain or argue about?”

  They separated to pass a square steel pillar and came together again. “I don’t know,” Papa Jan said. “I don’t know.” He walked along, his head lowered, frowning, his blanket wrapped around him. “Listen,” he said, “is there any classification that you want more than any other? Any assignment that you’re especially hoping for?”

  Chip looked uncertainly at Papa Jan and shrugged. “No,” he said. “I want the classification I’ll get, the one I’m right for. And the assignments I’ll get, the ones that the Family needs me to do. There’s only one assignment anyway, helping to spread the—”

  “‘Helping to spread the Family through the universe,’” Papa Jan said. “I know. Through the unified UniComp universe. Come on,” he said, “let’s go back up above. I can’t take this brother-fighting cold much longer.”

  Embarrassed, Chip said, “Isn’t there another level? You said there—”

  “We can’t,” Papa Jan said. “There are scanners there, and members around who’d see us not touching them and rush to ‘help’ us. There’s nothing special to see there anyway; the receiving and transmitting equipment and the refrigerating plants.”

  They went to the stairs. Chip felt let down. Papa Jan was disappointed with him for some reason; and worse, he wasn’t well, wanting to argue with Uni and not touching scanners and using bad language. “You ought to tell your adviser,” he said as they started up the stairs. “About wanting to argue with Uni.”

  “I don’t want to argue with Uni,” Papa Jan said. “I just want to be able to argue if I want to argue.”

  Chip couldn’t follow that at all. “You ought to tell him anyway,” he said. “Maybe you’ll get an extra treatment.”

  “Probably I would,” Papa Jan said; and after a moment, “All right, I’ll tell him.”

  “Uni knows everything about everything,” Chip said.

  They went up the second flight of stairs, and on the landing outside the display hallway, stopped and folded the blankets. Papa Jan finished first. He watched Chip finish folding his.

  “There,” Chip said, patting the blue bundle against his chest.

  “Do you know why I gave you the name ‘Chip’?” Papa Jan asked him.

  “No,” Chip said.

  “There’s an old saying, ‘a chip off the old block.’ It means that a child is like his parents or his grandparents.”

  “Oh.”

  “I didn’t mean you were like your father or even like me,” Papa Jan said. “I meant you were like my grandfather. Because of your eye. He had a green eye too.”

  Chip shifted, wanting Papa Jan to be done talking so they could go outside where they belonged.

  “I know you don’t like to talk about it,” Papa Jan said, “but it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Being a little different from everyone else isn’t such a terrible thing. Members used to be so different from each other, you can’t imagine. Your great-great grandfather was a very brave and capable man. His name was Hanno Rybeck—names and numbers were separate then—and he was a cosmonaut who helped build the first Mars colony. So don’t be ashamed that you’ve got his eye. They fight around with the genes today, excuse my language, but maybe they missed a few of yours; maybe you’ve got more than a green eye, maybe you’ve got some of my grandfather’s bravery and ability too.” He started to open the door but turned to look at Chip again. “Try wanting something, Chip,” he said. “Try a day or two before your next treatment. That’s when it’s easiest; to want things, to worry about things . . .”

  When they came out of the elevator into the ground-level lobby, Chip’s parents and Peace were waiting for them. “Where have you been?” Chip’s father asked, and Peace, holding a miniature orange memory bank (not really), said, “We’ve been waiting so long!”

  “We were looking at Uni,” Papa Jan said.

  Chip’s father said, “All this time?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You were supposed to move on and let other members have their turn.”

  “You were, Mike,” Papa Jan said, smiling. “My earpiece said ‘Jan old friend, it’s good to see you! You and your grandson can stay and look as long as you like!’”

  Chip’s father turned away, not smiling.

  They went to the canteen, claimed cakes and cokes—except Papa Jan, who wasn’t hungry—and took them out to the picnic area behind the dome. Papa Jan pointed out Mount Love to Chip and told him more about the drilling of the tunnel, which Chip’s father was surprised to hear about—a tunnel to bring in thirty-six not-so-big memory banks. Papa Jan told him that there were more banks on a lower level, but he didn’t say how many or how big they were, or how cold and how lifeless. Chip didn’t either. It gave him an odd feeling, knowing there was something that he and Papa Jan knew and weren’t telling the others; it made the two of them different from the others, and the same as each other, at least a little . . .

  When they had eaten, they walked to the carport and got on the claim line. Papa Jan stayed with them until they were near the scanners; then he left, explaining that he would wait and go home with two friends from Riverbend who were visiting Uni later in the day. “Riverbend” was his name for ’55131, where he lived.

  The next time Chip saw Bob NE, his adviser, he told him about Papa Jan; that he didn’t like Uni and wanted to argue with it and explain things to it.

  Bob, smiling, said, “That happens sometimes with members your grandfather’s age, Li. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “But can’t you tell Uni?” Chip said. “Maybe he can have an extra treatment, or a stronger one.”

  “Li,” Bob said, leaning forward across his desk, “the different chemicals we get in our treatments are very precious and hard to make. If older members got as much as they sometimes need, there might not be enough for the younger members, who are really more important to the Family. And to make enough chemicals to satisfy everyone, we might have to neglect the more important jobs. Uni knows what has to be done, how much of everything there is, and how much of everything everyone needs. Your grandfather isn’t really unhappy, I promise you. He’s just a bit crotchety, and we will be too when we’re in our fifties.”

  “He uses that word,” Chip said; “F-blank-blank-blank-T.”

  “Old members sometimes do that too,” Bob said. “They don’t really mean anything by it. Words aren’t in themselves ‘dirty’; it’s the actions that the so-called dirty words represent that are offensive. Members like your grandfather use only the words, not the actions. It’s not very nice, but it’s no real sickness. How about you? Any friction? Let’s leave your grandfather to his own adviser for a while.”

  “No, no friction,” Chip said, thinking about having passed a scanner without touching it and having been where Uni hadn’t said he could go and now suddenly not wanting to tell Bob about it. “No friction at all,” he said. “Everything is top speed.”

  “Okay,” Bob said. “Touch. I’ll see you next Friday, right?”

  A week or so later Papa Jan was transferred to USA60607. Chip and his parents and Peace drove to the airport at EUR-55130 to see him off.

  In the waiting room, while Chip’s parents and Peace watched through glass the members boarding the plane, Papa Jan drew Chip aside and stood looking at him, smiling fondly. “Chip green-eye,” he said—Chip frowned and tried to undo the frown—“you asked for an extra treatment for me, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Chip said. “How did you know?”

  “Oh, I guessed, that’s all,” Papa Jan said. “Take good care of yourself, Chip. Remember who you’re a chip off of, and remember what I said about trying to want something.”

  “I will,” Chip said.


  “The last ones are going,” Chip’s father said.

  Papa Jan kissed them all good-by and joined the members going out. Chip went to the glass and watched; and saw Papa Jan walking through the growing dark toward the plane, an unusually tall member, his take-along kit swinging at the end of a gangling arm. At the escalator he turned and waved—Chip waved back, hoping Papa Jan could see him—then turned again and put his kit-hand wrist to the scanner. Answering green sparked through dusk and distance, and he stepped onto the escalator and was taken smoothly upward.

  In the car going back Chip sat silently, thinking that he would miss Papa Jan and his Sunday-and-holiday visits. It was strange, because he was such an odd and different old member. Yet that was exactly why he would miss him, Chip suddenly realized; because he was odd and different, and nobody else would fill his place.

  “What’s the matter, Chip?” his mother asked.

  “I’m going to miss Papa Jan,” he said.

  “So am I,” she said, “but we’ll see him on the phone once in a while.”

  “It’s a good thing he’s going,” Chip’s father said.

  “I want him not to go,” Chip said. “I want him to be transferred back here.”

  “He’s not very likely to be,” his father said, “and it’s a good thing. He was a bad influence on you.”

  “Mike,” Chip’s mother said.

  “Don’t you start that cloth,” Chip’s father said. “My name is Jesus, and his is Li.”

  “And mine is Peace,” Peace said.

  3

  CHIP REMEMBERED what Papa Jan had told him, and in the weeks and months that followed, thought often about wanting something, wanting to do something, as Papa Jan at ten had wanted to help build Uni. He lay awake for an hour or so every few nights, considering all the different assignments there were, all the different classifications he knew of—construction supervisor like Papa Jan, lab technician like his father, plasmaphysicist like his mother, photographer like a friend’s father; doctor, adviser, dentist, cosmonaut, actor, musician. They all seemed pretty much the same, but before he could really want one he had to pick one. It was a strange thought to think about—to pick, to choose, to decide. It made him feel small, yet it made him feel big too, both at the same time.

  One night he thought it might be interesting to plan big buildings, like the little ones he had built with a construction set he had had a long time before (winking red no from Uni). That was the night before a treatment, which Papa Jan had said was a good time for wanting things. The next night big-building planner didn’t seem any different from any other classification. In fact, the whole idea of wanting one particular classification seemed silly and pre-U that night, and he went straight to sleep.

  The night before his next treatment he thought about planning buildings again—buildings of all different shapes, not just the three usual ones—and he wondered why the interestingness of the idea had disappeared the month before. Treatments were to prevent diseases and to relax members who were tense and to keep women from having too many babies and men from having hair on their faces; why should they make an interesting idea seem not interesting? But that was what they did, one month, and the next month, and the next.

  Thinking such thoughts might be a form of selfishness, he suspected; but if it was, it was such a minor form—involving only an hour or two of sleep time, never of school or TV time—that he didn’t bother to mention it to Bob NE, just as he wouldn’t have mentioned a moment’s nervousness or an occasional dream. Each week when Bob asked if everything was okay, he said yes it was: top speed, no friction. He took care not to “think wanting” too often or too long, so that he always got all the sleep he needed, and mornings, while washing, he checked his face in the mirror to make sure he still looked right. He did—except of course for his eye.

  In 146 Chip and his family, along with most of the members in their building, were transferred to AFR71680. The building they were housed in was a brand-new one, with green carpet instead of gray in the hallways, larger TV screens, and furniture that was upholstered though nonadjustable.

  There was much to get used to in ’71680. The climate was somewhat warmer, and the coveralls lighter in weight and color; the monorail was old and slow and had frequent breakdowns; and the totalcakes were wrapped in greenish foil and tasted salty and not quite right.

  Chip’s and his family’s new adviser was Mary CZ14L8584. She was a year older than Chip’s mother, though she looked a few years younger.

  Once Chip had grown accustomed to life in ’71680—school, at least, was no different—he resumed his pastime of “thinking wanting.” He saw now that there were considerable differences between classifications, and began to wonder which one Uni would give him when the time came. Uni, with its two levels of cold steel blocks, its empty echoing hardnesses ... He wished Papa Jan had taken him down to the bottom level, where members were. It would be pleasanter to think of being classified by Uni and some members instead of by Uni alone; if he were to be given a classification he didn’t like, and members were involved, maybe it would be possible to explain to them . . .

  Papa Jan called twice a year; he claimed more, he said, but that was all he was granted. He looked older, smiled tiredly. A section of USA60607 was being rebuilt and he was in charge. Chip would have liked to tell him that he was trying to want something, but he couldn’t with the others standing in front of the screen with him. Once, when a call was nearly over, he said, “I’m trying,” and Papa Jan smiled like his old self and said, “That’s the boy!”

  When the call was over, Chip’s father said, “What are you trying?”

  “Nothing,” Chip said.

  “You must have meant something,” his father said.

  Chip shrugged.

  Mary CZ asked him too, the next time Chip saw her. “What did you mean when you told your grandfather you were trying?” she said.

  “Nothing,” Chip said.

  “Li,” Mary said, and looked at him reproachfully. “You said you were trying. Trying what?”

  “Trying not to miss him,” he said. “When he was transferred to Usa I told him I would miss him, and he said I should try not to, that members were all the same and anyway he would call whenever he could.”

  “Oh,” Mary said, and went on looking at Chip, now uncertainly. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” she asked.

  Chip shrugged.

  “And do you miss him?”

  “Just a little,” Chip said. “I’m trying not to.”

  Sex began, and that was even better to think about than wanting something. Though he’d been taught that orgasms were extremely pleasurable, he had had no idea whatsoever of the all-but-unbearable deliciousness of the gathering sensations, the ecstasy of the coming, and the drained and boneless satisfaction of the moments afterward. Nobody had had any idea, none of his classmates; they talked about nothing else and would gladly have devoted themselves to nothing else as well. Chip could hardly think about mathematics and electronics and astronomy, let alone the differences between classifications.

  After a few months, though, everyone calmed down, and accustomed to the new pleasure, gave it its proper Saturday-night place in the week’s pattern.

  One Saturday evening when Chip was fourteen, he bicycled with a group of his friends to a fine white beach a few kilometers north of AFR71680. There they swam—jumped and pushed and splashed in waves made pink-foamed by the foundering sun—and built a fire on the sand and sat around it on blankets and ate their cakes and cokes and crisp sweet pieces of a bashed-open coconut. A boy played songs on a recorder, not very well, and then, the fire crumbling to embers, the group separated into five couples, each on its own blanket.

  The girl Chip was with was Anna VF, and after their orgasm—the best one Chip had ever had, or so it seemed—he was filled with a feeling of tenderness toward her, and wished there were something he could give her as a conveyor of it, like the beautiful shell that Karl GG had given Yin
AP, or Li OS’s recorder-song, softly cooing now for whichever girl he was lying with. Chip had nothing for Anna, no shell, no song; nothing at all, except, maybe, his thoughts.

  “Would you like something interesting to think about?” he asked, lying on his back with his arm about her.

  “Mm,” she said, and squirmed closer against his side. Her head was on his shoulder, her arm across his chest.

  He kissed her forehead. “Think of all the different classifications there are—” he said.

  “Mm?”

  “And try to decide which one you would pick if you had to pick one.”

  “To pick one?” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To pick one. To have. To be in. Which classification would you like best? Doctor, engineer, adviser . . .”

  She propped her head up on her hand and squinted at him. “What do you mean?” she said.

  He gave a little sigh and said, “We’re going to be classified, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Suppose we weren’t going to be. Suppose we had to classify ourselves.”

  “That’s silly,” she said, finger-drawing on his chest.

  “It’s interesting to think about.”

  “Let’s fuck again,” she said.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Just think about all the different classifications. Suppose it were up to us to—”

  “I don’t want to,” she said, stopping drawing. “That’s silly. And sick. We get classified; there’s nothing to think about. Uni knows what we’re—”

  “Oh, fight Uni,” Chip said. “Just pretend for a minute that we’re living in—”

  Anna flipped away from him and lay on her stomach, stiff and unmoving, the back of her head to him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “For you. You’re sick.”

  “No I’m not,” he said.