There Is a Tide - Brian W. Aldiss, ebook, Temp
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file:///K|/BitLord/Downloads/LOPL/LoPL%20full%2004.11.26%20A%2...1.26%20A%20-%20D/A/ALDISS,%20Brian.W/There%20is%20a%20tide.txtTHERE IS A TIDEby Brian W. AldissHow SOOTHING to the heart it was to be home. I began thatevening with nothing but peace in me: and the evening itselfjellied down over Africa with a mild mother's touch: so thateven now I must refuse myself the luxury of claiming any pre-monition of the disaster for which the scene was already set.My half-brother, K-Jubal (we had the same father), wasin a talkative mood. As we sat at the table on the verandaof his house, his was the major part of the conversation: andthis was unusual, for I am a poet, and poets are generallyarticulate enough."... because the new dam is now complete," he was say-ing, "and I shall take my days more easily. I am going towrite my life story, Rog. G-Williams on the World Weeklyhas been pressing me for it for some time; it'll be serialized,and then turned into audibook form. I should make a lot ofmoney, eh?"He smiled as he asked this; in my company he alwaysenjoyed playing the heavy materialist. Generally I encouragedhim; this time I said: "Jubal, no man in Congo States, noman in the world possibly, has done more for people thanyou. I am the idle singer of an idle day, but youwhy, yourgood works lie about you."I swept my hand out over the still bright land.Mokulgu is a rising town on the western fringes of LakeTanganyika's nothem end. Before Jubal and his engineerscame here, it was a sleepy market town, and its natives livedin the indolent fashion of their countless forefathers. In tenyears, that ancient pattern was awry; in fifteen, shatteredcompletely. If you lived in Mokulgu now, you slept in a bedin a towering nest of flats, you ate food unfouled by flies,and you moved to the sound of whistles and machinery. Youhad at your black fingertips, in fact, the benefits of whatwe persist in calling "Western civilization". If you were morehygienic and healthyso ran the theoryyou were happier.But I begin to sound sceptical. That is my error. I happento have little love for my fellow men; the thought of theMassacre is always with me, even after all this time. I couldnot deny that the trend of things at Mokulgu and elsewhere,the constant urbanization, was almost unavoidable. But asfile:///K|/BitLord/Downloads/LOPL/LoPL%20full%2004.1...0-%20D/A/ALDISS,%20Brian.W/There%20is%20a%20tide.txt (1 of 15)9-12-2006 0:19:33file:///K|/BitLord/Downloads/LOPL/LoPL%20full%2004.11.26%20A%2...1.26%20A%20-%20D/A/ALDISS,%20Brian.W/There%20is%20a%20tide.txta man of sensibility, I regretted that human advance shouldalways be over the corpse of Nature.From where we sat over our southern wines, both lakeand town were partially visible, the forests in the immediatearea having been demolished long ago. The town was alreadyblazing with light, the lake looked already dark, a thingpreparing for night. And to our left, standing out with aclarity which suggested yet more rain to come, stretched therolling jungles of the Congo tributaries.For at least three hundred miles in that direction, man hadnot invaded: there lived the pygmies, flourishing withoutdespoiling. That area, the Congo Source land, would be thenext to go; Jubal, indeed, was the spearhead of the attack.But for my generation at least that vast tract of primitivebeauty would stand, and I was selfishly glad of it. I alwaysgained more pleasure from trees than population increasestatistics.Jubal caught something of the expression on my face."The power we are releasing here will last for ever," hesaid. "It's already changingimprovingthe entire economyof the area. At last, at long last, Africa is realizing herpotentialities."His voice held almost a tremor, and I thought that thispassion for Progress was the secret of his strength."You cling too much to the past, Rog," he added."Why all this digging and tunnelling and wrenching up ofriverbeds?" I asked. "Would not atomics haye been a cheaperand easier answer?""No," he said decisively. "This system puts to use idlewater; once in operation, everything is entirely self-servicing.Besides, uranium is none too plentiful, water is. Venus hasno radioactive materials, I believe?"This sounded to me like an invitation to change the sub-ject. I accepted it."They've found none yet," I assented. "But I can speakwith no authority. I went purely as a touristand a glorioustrip it was.""It must be wonderful to be so many million miles nearerthe sun," he said. It was the sort of plain remark I hadoften heard him make. On others' lips it might have soundedplatitudinous; in his quiet tones I caught a note of sublimity."I shall never get to Venus," he said. "There's too muchwork to be done here. You must have seen some marvelsfile:///K|/BitLord/Downloads/LOPL/LoPL%20full%2004.1...0-%20D/A/ALDISS,%20Brian.W/There%20is%20a%20tide.txt (2 of 15)9-12-2006 0:19:33file:///K|/BitLord/Downloads/LOPL/LoPL%20full%2004.11.26%20A%2...1.26%20A%20-%20D/A/ALDISS,%20Brian.W/There%20is%20a%20tide.txtthere, Rog!""Yes . . . Yet nothing so strange as an elephant.""And they'll have a breathable atmosphere in a decade,I hear?""So they say. They are certainly doing wonders . . . Youknow, Jubal, I shall have to go back then. You see, there'sa feeling, ersomething, a sort of expectancy. No, not quitethat; it's hard to explain" I don't converse well. I rambleand mumble when I have something real to say. I couldsay it to a woman, or I could write it on paper; butJubal is a man of action, and when I did say it, I deliber-ately omitted emotional overtones and lost interest in whatI said. "It's like courting a woman in armour with the visorclosed, on Venus now. You can see it, but you can't touchor smell or breathe it. Always an airtight dome er a spacesuit between you and actuality. But in ten years' time, you'llbe able to run your bare fingers through the sand, feel thebreezes on your cheek... Well, you know what I mean, ersort of feel her undressed."He was thinking1 saw it in his eyes"Rog's going to goall poetic on me." He said: "And you approve of that-the change-over of atmospheres?""Yes.""Yet you don't approve of what we're doing here, whichis just the same sort of thing?"He had a point. "You're upsetting a delicate balance here,"I said gingerly. "A thousand ecological factors are swept bythe board just so that you can grind these waters through yourturbines. And the same thing's happened at Owen Fallsover on Lake Victoria... But on Venus there's no suchbalance. It's just a clean page waiting for man to write whathe will on it. Under that CO blanket, there's been no sparkof life: the mountains are bare of moss, the valleys lie in-nocent of grass; in the geological strata, no fossils sleep;no arncebae move in the sea. But what you're doing here. . .""People!" he exclaimed. "I've got people to consider. Babiesneed to be born, mouths must be fed. A man must live.Your sort of feelings are all very wellthey make goodpoemsbut I consider the people. I love the people. Forthem I work. . ."He waved his hands, overcome by his own grandiose visions.If the passion for Progress was his strength, the fallacy in-herent in the idea was his secret weakness. I began to growfile:///K|/BitLord/Downloads/LOPL/LoPL%20full%2004.1...0-%20D/A/ALDISS,%20Brian.W/There%20is%20a%20tide.txt (3 of 15)9-12-2006 0:19:33file:///K|/BitLord/Downloads/LOPL/LoPL%20full%2004.11.26%20A%2...1.26%20A%20-%20D/A/ALDISS,%20Brian.W/There%20is%20a%20tide.txtwarm."You get good conditions for these people, they procreateforthwith. Next generation, another benefactor will have tostep forward and get good conditions for the children. That'sProgress, eh?" I asked maliciously."I see you so rarely, Rog; don't let's quarrel," he saidmeekly. "I just do what I can. I'm only an engineer."That was how he always won an altercation. Before meek-ness I have no defence. But hostility ran like a sewer belowthe level of our conversation.The sun had finished another day. With the sudden dark-ness came chill. Jubal pressed a button, and glass slid roundthe veranda, enclosing us. Like Venus, I thought; but hereyou could still smell that spicy, bosomy scent which is thebreath of dear Africa herself. On Venus, the smells areimported.We poured some more wine and talked of family matters.In a short while his wife, Sloe, joined us. I began to feelat home. The feeling was only partly psychological; my glandswere now beginning to readjust fully to normal conditionsafter their long days in space travel.J-Casta also appeared. Him I was less pleased to see.He was the boss type, the strong-arm man: as Jubal's under-ling, he pandered wretchedly to him and bullied everyone elseon the project. He (and there were many others like him,unfortunately) thought of the Massacre as man's greatestachievement. This evening, in the presence of his superiors,after a preliminary burst of showing off, he was quiet enough.When they pressed me to, I talked of Venus. As I spoke,back rushed that humblingbut intoxicatingsense of aweto think I had actually lived to stand in full possession of mymany faculties on that startling planet. The same feeling hadoften possessed me on Mars. And (as justifiably) on Earth.The vision chimed, and an amber light biinked drowsilyoff and on in Jubal's tank. Even then, no premonition of ca-tastrophe; since then, I can never see that amber heartbeatwithout anxiety.Jubal answered it, and a man's face swam up in the tankto greet him. They talked; I cou...
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