Commune 2000 AD. Mack Reynolds

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СКАЧАТЬ Ted decided. He was a pale-faced, energetic type, with a certain supercilious quality. He wore a soft Van Dyke, his lips were too red, and Ted Swain suspected that he was a queerie. He was supposedly one of Englebrecht’s secretaries and lived in the academician’s quarters, which gave additional rise to Ted’s snide opinions of his director of dissertation. Englebrecht was a life-long bachelor.

      The secretary’s name was Brian Fitz, and he said, “Ah, Doctor Swain, isn’t it?”

      There it was, the supercilious touch. Fitz knew damn well it was Swain, the elevator had automatically notified him of Ted’s coming. Besides, they had met before.

      “That’s right, Fitz,” Ted said. “The academician called about an hour ago saying he wanted to see me.”

      Fitz fluttered a hand in a gesture to be followed, and turned to lead the way, saying over his shoulder, “Certainly. He is in his escape sanctum.”

      Ted followed the other down a deeply carpeted hall. On the walls were several paintings which he suspected should have been in the university city’s museum. Well, Englebrecht wasn’t the only member of the upper reaches of the faculty to pull that one. The excuse was always that there wasn’t room to hang them in the museum and otherwise they would be collecting dust in the basements. Once, as a younger man, Ted Swain had participated in a dig in Mexico and had returned proudly with several excellent specimens of Chipicuaro pottery, a ceramic mask and two figurines. He had, of course, presented them to the school museum, and was somewhat disillusioned later to spot the pre-Columbian artifacts displayed in the home of the head of the archaeology department.

      They stopped before a massive wooden door and Brian Fitz murmured softly, “Doctor Swain, sir.”

      The door screen said, “Do come in,” and the door opened.

      Ted Swain was impressed, once more, with the room’s magnificence.

      Franz Englebrecht was sitting behind a desk which was impressively littered with papers, and devoid of TV phone, library booster, or any other electronic device of the present.

      Very impressive, Ted thought lemonishly.

      The other didn’t bother to come to his feet to shake hands. He beamed and said, “Excellent, Swain. I must say, you are prompt.”

      “Good morning, sir,” Ted said. You’re goddamned right I’m prompt, he thought. You’d be prompt too, if you’d been waiting for this the better part of a decade. His eyes went about the room again.

      It was an escape room fitted out by someone who didn’t know how to pinch pennies and who wasn’t expected to know how. It was large and square and the ceiling was high, high above. There was soft-piled rose broadloom on the baseboards, white metal Venetian blinds and gold damask draperies at the windows and redwood paneling on the only wall that wasn’t lined with shelves of books in rich bindings behind glass. A circular redwood stand in one corner supported a huge globe. Between two windows was the oversized desk at which the academician sat. It supported a dull bronze lamp.

      Englebrecht saw the expression on his visitor’s face and chuckled. “Rank has its privileges, my boy, even in a collectivist society. You see, to get the most out of us, ah, upper executives, we have to have facilities not required by those we direct.”

      “Would you call this a collectivist society?” Ted asked.

      “Why, of course, I suppose so. I can’t think of any more appropriate term. Some would call it socialistic, but practically every country remaining in the world calls itself socialistic, and hardly two of them but differ. The term is too elastic. It ranges from the Soviet Complex to North Africa, which is still primarily an agrarian, Moslem society.”

      The older man looked at his secretary. “I suppose that it is too early for a drink,” he said. “Brian, could you rustle up some coffee for Doctor Swain and myself?”

      “Oh, yes sir.” He turned briskly and was off to dial the beverage in the pseudokitchen.

      “Have a chair, Swain, my boy,” the director said. He beamed his jovial smile again, to his visitor’s distress.

      Ted Swain sat down in a leather chair across from his host’s desk. “Needless to say, Academician Englebrecht, I was pleased to get your call.”

      “Of course, of course. I’ve had an eye on you for a long time, my boy. I’ve been racking my mind for years in your behalf.”

      Ted Swain tried to keep skepticism from his face and hoped that he was successful. Dissimulation wasn’t his strongest point.

      “Very kind of you, sir.”

      “The inspiration came just last night. To be perfectly honest, I checked it out with the data banks to see if any of my other candidates might be more highly qualified for the research.” He smirked fondly at Ted Swain. “None of them came within an inch of touching your qualifications.”

      “Well, thank you, sir. But, well … just what is this thesis?”

      Englebrecht puffed his cheeks out slightly, as though he were about to astound his caller. “You are a particular student of Henry Lewis Morgan and Bandelier.”

      “Why, yes, I am.”

      “Very well, of course, of course. The two of them, in the 19th Century, specialized in the primitive clans which were the basis of society in Neolithic times.”

      “Gens,” Ted muttered. “They called them gens.”

      “Of course, of course,” the other said, patting a well-larded knee with a larded hand. “Communal society, eh? The family, the clan, the tribe.”

      It wasn’t exactly the way Ted Swain would have put it.

      Englebrecht said, “You are acquainted with the present communes which are springing up throughout the nation like mushrooms after a rainfall?”

      Ted looked at him blankly. “Well, I’ve heard about them. I haven’t had the opportunity to see or investigate the phenomenon.”

      Englebrecht beamed. “You will, my boy. Your theme will be a comparison of the present-day communes with the primitive communes of ancient society.”

Chapter Three

      Ted Swain stared at him. What possible connection could there be?”

      Englebrecht was impatient. “See here, my boy, if you aren’t interested in this research …”

      Ted said hurriedly, “Oh, it’s not that. The … the concept is simply so new to me.”

      “Of course. However, you must admit that according to Morgan and Bandelier primitive society was communal. Based on the family, based on what amounted to an early form of communism. No such thing as private property. Often, even women were held in common.”

      The man obviously had no idea of what he was talking about. Ted said desperately, “But the present-day communes are not composed of related families, necessarily, and though perhaps some of them practice community ownership, that isn’t necessarily the rule. It’s … well, it’s practically impossible to compare these modern developments in communal living with what pertained in Neolithic times.”

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