The World Inside Read Free Page B

And privacy is frustration.”
    â€œSo you can go into any room in this whole gigantic building and sleep with—”
    â€œNot the whole building,” Mattern says, interrupting. “Only Shanghai. We frown on nightwalking beyond one’s own city.” He chuckles. “We do impose a few little restrictions on ourselves, you see, so that our freedoms don’t pall.”
    Gortman turns toward Principessa. She wears a loinband and a metallic cup over her left breast. She is slender but voluptuously constructed, and even though her childbearing days are over she has not lost the sensual glow of young womanhood. Mattern is proud of her, despite everything.
    Mattern says, “Shall we begin our tour of the building?”
    They go toward the door. Gortman bows gracefully to Principessa as he and Mattern leave. In the corridor, the visitor says, “Your family is smaller than the norm, I see.”
    It is an excruciatingly impolite statement, but Mattern is able to be tolerant of his guest’s faux pas. Mildly he replies, “We would have had more children, but my wife’s fertility had to be terminated surgically. It was a great tragedy for us.”
    â€œYou have always valued large families here?”
    â€œWe value life. To create new life is the highest virtue. To prevent life from coming into being is the darkest sin. We all love our big bustling world. Does it seem unendurable to you? Do we seem unhappy?”
    â€œYou seem surprisingly well adjusted,” Gortman says. “Considering that—” He stops.
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œConsidering that there are so many of you. And that you spend your whole lives inside a single colossal building. You never do go out, do you?”
    â€œMost of us never do,” Mattern admits. “I have traveled, of course—a sociocomputator needs perspective, obviously. But Principessa has never left the building. I believe she has never been below the 350th floor, except when she was taken to see the lower levels while she was in school. Why should she go anywhere? The secret of our happiness is to create self-contained villages of five or six floors within the cities of forty floors within the urbmons of a thousand floors. We have no sensation of being overcrowded or cramped. We know our neighbors; we have hundreds of dear friends; we are kind and loyal and blessworthy to one another.”
    â€œAnd everybody remains happy forever?”
    â€œNearly everybody.”
    â€œWho are the exceptions?” Gortman asks.
    â€œThe flippos,” says Mattern. “We endeavor to minimize the frictions of living in such an environment; as you see, we never deny one another anything, we never thwart a reasonable desire. But sometimes there are those who abruptly decide they can no longer abide by our principles. They flip; they thwart others; they rebel. It is quite sad.”
    â€œWhat do you do with flippos?”
    â€œWe remove them, of course,” Mattern says. He smiles, and they enter the dropshaft once again.
    Â 
    Mattern has been authorized to show Gortman the entire urbmon, a tour that will take several days. He is a littleapprehensive; he is not as familiar with some parts of the structure as a guide should be. But he will do his best.
    â€œThe building,” he says, “is made of superstressed concrete. It is constructed about a central service core two hundred meters square. Originally, the plan was to have fifty families per floor, but we average about 120 today, and the old apartments have all been subdivided into single-room occupancies. We are wholly self-sufficient, with our own schools, hospitals, sports arenas, houses of worship, and theaters.”
    â€œFood?”
    â€œWe produce none, of course. But we have contractual access to the agricultural communes. I’m sure you’ve seen that nearly nine tenths of the land area of this continent is used for food production; and then there