World Without War

"Well, they did. And, of course, the obvious thing happened. Since they cooperated in some things, they cooperated in a lot of things, even fighting. That's how they could make war, you know—not the nice, social sort of fighting we do now. And you can imagine what happened. You can kill an awful lot of people awful fast, if a gang gets together on it like that. If they didn't have the artificial bodies and the psi transfer transmitters to make them come alive, there wouldn't have been anybody left after a while. That cooperation is rough stuff."

"Obviously," she commented dryly.

"Well, that's the reason for everything, then. Pretty soon the factories couldn't turn out hypnobodies fast enough and people had to fight in their protobodies sometimes. But after a few centuries, the leaders began to get civilized, and decided to put an end to all this cooperative killing. I guess they all got together and agreed not to cooperate with each other in anything in the future."

"It stands to reason," Mark concluded, "people had to learn to be civilized. They weren't just born that way. It's—it's culture."

"Pouf," said Jennette critically.

"All right," he growled, biting viciously into a pomegranate. "Let's hear your big story if it's so good."

Jennette stretched out her legs and contemplated her wiggling toes. "Oh, I don't know. I don't have any real ideas. But I know better than to believe that sort of nonsense. People just aren't like that, and you know it." She hesitated thoughtfully, then continued. "Maybe a few of them got together now and then for a party or something like this. But not hundreds of them."

When Mark did not reply, she laughed and said, "I guess I'm just feeling risque tonight."

"You sure are," he mumbled.

"Of course there are parts of the old mythology that seem rather interesting—beautiful, even—"

"It's not mythology."

"Like the part that deals with marriage."

She waited. Mark dutifully echoed, "Deals with what?"

"Marriage."

Mark considered it. Then he shook his head. "What's that?"

"See?" she taunted him. "You don't know everything like you think you do. Marriage," she explained, "was a sort of cooperative agreement that the ancient people were supposed to have entered into."

"Sure, just like I said," Mark stated with assurance. "Hundreds of people did it. They got involved in this marriage agreement, and made war on each other with it."

"What a dope. Marriage was an agreement between just two people. And that much I might believe. Hundreds is too much."

"It was hundreds," Mark insisted.

"It was not. It was just two. And what's more, it was between a man and a woman. They lived together with their protobodies and agreed to cooperate together, and they made children and took care of them until they grew up."

"Why that's thirty or forty years," Mark exclaimed. "Even the wars didn't last that long. That's really nonsense. Besides, you can only make children in the Decanting Centers. And it's all done by machines."

"Well, maybe it is a little far fetched. But I think it's cute."

"Humph."

There was a few minutes silence. Then Jennette said softly, "Mark—"

"Yes?"

"Mark, you like me a lot, don't you?"

Mark squirmed uncomfortably, and stared at the artificial moon.

"Don't you?" she insisted. "More than you ever have anybody else?"

"Well, guess that's right," he admitted lamely. "A whole lot more than I should."

She reassuringly patted his hand with her little one. "That's all right, Mark. I won't tell anybody. Besides, I feel just the same way about you."

Mark nodded without speaking, worriedly studying the vague markings on the bright luminous disk in the simulated sky.

"Mark, don't you ever want to see the real me?" she inquired urgently. "Don't you sometimes feel kind of empty because you can never really have me—know me, because all you ever see is a manufactured thing that only somewhat resembles what I am really like?"

Mark blushed. She had come a little too close to the uncomfortable truth. But he refused to admit it, at least to her. He mumbled an indistinct denial.

"Are you sure?" she said, grabbing his hands, gazing intently into his eyes, forcing him to look at her. "Wouldn't you sometime like to come down to my transmitter quarters?"

"But—"

"And see and touch my protobody—the thing I really am?"

"Aw—"

"Scared?"

"Maybe I am."

"That's silly."

Mark swallowed and said stiffly, "Just because there is a no-fight clause in your invitation tonight doesn't necessarily mean I have to follow it, you know. You don't need weapons. I could strangle your protobody easily."

"You wouldn't," she said confidently.

"You sure don't think much of me, do you?"

"I think just the same of you as you do of me," she said simply.

With impulsive hunger, Mark threw his arms around her, holding her tightly against him, nuzzling her, smelling the perfume of her hair, incoherently mumbling into her ear. "Jennette, Jennette," he sang, "I think more of you than anything. I love you. I know it's wrong, but I would never even shoot you, because sometimes it hurts you, and I wouldn't want you to feel even the slightest discomfort." He stopped, took a deep breath, and added meekly, "I'm sorry."

"But Mark," she whispered. "Why is it really so wrong?"

"You know."

"Suppose I told you that this body is my protobody right now?" she asked earnestly.

"But it isn't."

"It is," she said faintly.