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Title: Utopia? Never!
Author: Thomas M. Disch
Release date: December 12, 2023 [eBook #72389]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1963
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UTOPIA? NEVER! ***
"UTOPIA? NEVER!"
By THOMAS M. DISCH
_The stranger would not admit that New Katanga was a
paradise, though he accepted citizenship willingly
enough. Little did he know that he was right._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories August 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"But I assure you ..." his guide replied.
"There's always a fly in the ointment," the visitor continued.
"Injustice is part of human nature. A society can't do without it."
"These are special conditions."
"_That_ is the first injustice. Other planets don't have gobblers."
"But they do!"
"It's not the same thing. You've seen the gobbler-fleece from Morpheus
IX. It's no better than wool. Only here in New Katanga...."
"Utopia," his guide corrected.
"Only here is their fleece as tough as iron--"
"And soft to the touch as watered silk." His guide sighed deeply;
truly, there was nothing like gobbler-fleece.
"Your planet's prosperity is possible, however, only at the expense of
Federation worlds that can't raise gobblers."
"True," his guide agreed wanly.
"If New Katanga would reveal to the Federation the secret of the
gobbler-fleece--the special process you have developed here, I assure
you...."
"On your right," his guide pointed out, "you will observe our new Civic
Auditorium, renowned throughout the galaxy for the classic beauty of
its proportions...."
"I _assure_ you that I would not be so apt to suspect the motive of
your utopian pretensions."
"Each panel of the glass wall is in the ratio 2:3. The sculpture in
the center of the fountain was executed at enormous expense by Berndt
Thorwald, the Terran--who was since naturalized. It is an allegory of
Peace, Prosperity, and Freedom."
"--!" the visitor grunted.
"Perhaps it is necessary, as you suggest, for a utopia to be isolated
to a certain degree. We do enjoy advantages here that are wanting
on--what did you say your home-world is called?"
"Aridity VI."
"Just so. Yet, our chief advantage is not our monopoly of
gobbler-fleece but the perfection of our social institutions. Here
there is no crime, no war, no politics, no hunger, and little disease.
Our Utopians are not greedy, envious, wrathful, lazy, or bedeviled with
lusts...."
"Come again! Every night, there's a line outside my bedroom door, five
deep. Not that I object, but in the Land of the Pure it seems a strange
thing."
* * * * *
His guide tried to conceal his smile. "It is because you are a visitor.
A certain romantic charm attaches to your peculiar position. An aura.
On the whole, our citizens are more moderate in their appetites.
Puritanism, too, is a short-coming. You have been enjoying your stay, I
take it?"
"Oh yes!"
"The food?"
"Excellent. I must have gained thirty pounds."
His guide nodded appreciatively at the visitor's girth. "You will
find, as you grow accustomed to plenty, that even moderation has its
pleasures. But I will not make sermons. Have you enjoyed the weather?"
"Just the right amount of zip. Your engineers are geniuses."
"Our schools and hospitals, our roads and public buildings?"
"In all those things, you are the paragon of the galaxy. And the
private homes that I have seen are models of restrained munificence."
"They were selected at random."
"Of course, I knew long before my visit that your artists and
scientists...."
"Virtually the whole population," his guide put in.
"--are without peer."
"And yet you deny us the title of Utopia?"
"Utopia? Never!" the visitor said adamantly. "There's always a worm in
the rose. I just have not found it yet, but it's there. Injustice is a
part of human nature."
"What a shame! I had hoped that you would accept full citizenship."
"Full cit--" the visitor gasped, letting his 280 pounds settle slowly
onto a teakwood park bench.
"Yes. But since...."
"Show me the papers."
"But as a representative of the Federation?"
"I renounce Federation citizenship. What do I sign?"
"Here. And here. And here. Good." He tucked the papers into a small
leather carrying case.
"It seems to me that, with so permissive an immigration policy, New
Katanga will soon be overrun."
"On the contrary, exclusivity would be unjust and, in the long run,
unprofitable. A society always can use fresh blood. Besides, we have a
stable population rate, all things considered."
"Well, I feel like celebrating."
"Why don't we take in the matinee performance at the Auditorium then.
Admission, like everything else in Utopia, is free. The performances
are quite hair-raising, something on the order of the Roman _Circus_,
I'm told."
The new citizen raised an eye-brow. "In Utopia?"
"It's a healthy outlet for our small aggressions."
They walked up the marble staircase to the Grand Circle.
"Would you wait for me a few minutes in my box? I have some things to
attend to."
* * * * *
The visitor entered the box through a great door, heavily crusted with
gold. His seat afforded him an excellent view of the arena. All the
Utopians in the tiers above and across from his box stopped chattering
and turned, as one man, to gaze at him. The new citizen recognized
several women of recent acquaintance and waved to them. They waved
back. One kissed her sheer gobbler-fleece scarf and threw it toward
him. It billowed in the warm air of the auditorium and sank gracefully
to the floor of the arena. There was restrained applause.
The lights dimmed. The entrance-gates at the far end of the arena
opened with a clank. The gobblers bounded out with that curious, lithe
motion so strange in creatures of their bulk. They circled the arena
and came to a stop underneath the new citizen's box, where, lips
pressed back from their terrible fangs, they mewled softly.
With an almost imperceptible _click_, the box was disengaged from
its moorings and swung free over the arena. Then with slow, pendular
motions it descended to the floor.
The audience cheered wildly as the gobblers leaped, like great-maned
antelopes, over the railing of the box and tore the new citizen of
Utopia into shreds. Even as they gulped down the huge chunks of fatty
tissue, the spectator could see their fleece change from a tone of drab
nickel to a sheen something between the glint of polished steel and the
shimmer of watered silk.
THE END
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UTOPIA? NEVER! ***
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