Tomorrow’s World Read Free Page B

timesphere. The idea is that each haven in the community is as self-sufficient as possible. Spending too much time Outside literally takes years off your life.
    The F faded out when the lift reached 1, the first of the ten residential levels. There’s no point building much higher than that, or the superstorms are likely to knock down whatever it is you’ve constructed.
    With a sense of shame I realized I’d hardly given a thought to the flatlined occupant of 331. In a belated attempt to make up for that, I tried to fit a face to the apartment. It’s not easy, because two thousand people live in Haven Nine. Two thousand people live in each of the twenty identical havens that make up the community. I’m sure Paula could put a name and face to every apartment in Haven Nine. I can, too, but because my mind isn’t like a supercomputer I’d have to call on the Ecosystem in order to do it. Raising my wrist, palm up, I spoke into the tiny microphone woven into the fabric of the i-band: “I need a basic background report on 331.” I didn’t have to identify myself or who I was addressing. The Ecosystem can tell who’s speaking and assumes you’re addressing it, and not another citizen, unless you say differently.
    The Ecosystem that controls all aspects of life in my community is also at the heart of every other community on Earth. That’s 10,000 communities, and close to half a billion people. Its processing power is so great, however, that if you have sufficient clearance it can tell you almost anything about anyone within a second of being asked. As the lift rose from level one to two, the basic facts about the occupant of apartment 331 were relayed through my hear-ring: “Douglas MacDougall. Caucasian male. Age 44. Height 189cm. Weight 75kg. Long brown hair—” I thought I heard a trace of disapproval, but knew it was only in my imagination—”Green eyes. Widowed. One daughter—” now I was sure I heard a hint of censure. “No history of corrective counseling. Positive credit rating. Ran plant store in Community Central.”
    The last bit of information let me put a face to the name, because I knew the shop. It was a little oasis of green—and occasionally, if you were lucky, blossoms of incredibly beautiful colors—in a desert of gray. Like most Names, I keep a plant and love it dearly. It’s only a common-or-garden prickly cactus of the kind you find all over most of northern Europe. But to me it’s something special, at once an object of affection and a source of wonder. It’s a symbol of inherited guilt because it reminds me of what previous generations reduced the planet to; and it’s a beacon of hope because, despite all the dreadful things done to the Earth, Doug MacDougall was still able to find that plant surviving Outside.
    I’ve spent many a contented hour in Doug’s shop, looking at the exotics—the geraniums and dandelions and daisies—and wishing I could afford one. He usually had half a dozen different exotics, flowers that were once found in every garden in this part of the world but are now so rare only licensed bio-prospectors can source them. There’s only one license per community, and the holder has a quota carefully calculated by the Ecosystem. The quota ensures the species has a chance to survive in the wild—and that some examples will live on in the communities in case the toxic haze, acid rain and sterile soil of the Outside prove too much.
    Numbers walk past Doug’s shop without a second glance; Names browse around it and lose all track of time, or stand gazing in the window, lost in wonder. I’m sure many Names go out of their way to pass the shop, like I do, to check on how a plant they can’t afford is progressing; whether a bud has appeared, a blossom opened. You can tell when one of the plants has come into flower because there’s a queue to get into