Enemies of the System. Brian Aldiss

incised, slogans which contributed much to the moral tone of society. For the first time since leaving Unity, all the passengers sat up and paid attention out of the windows, sometimes reading aloud with pleasure words they had known since childhood.

      Resolution is the Foe of Deviation

      Unity Breeds Immunity

      Never Think What Cannot Be Said

      Eternal Vigilance Grants Eternal Security:

      Without It Is Eternal Anarchy

      There Are No Free Launches

      The slogans glowed in enticing colours, smouldering into darkness again as soon as the bus had passed.

      Suddenly, they were propelled back into daylight. As the rock fell away and the road ceased to curve, the tourists found themselves travelling over a tremendous plain. Its extent was emphasised by the cliff now falling behind them, and the still-distant plateau in the mists. The floor of the plain – ugly, barren and broken – was dotted with rocky debris which rose in mounds. Now and then, a sluggish river could be glimpsed.

      ‘We have entered the Great Rift Valley,’ Constanza said. ‘The Gorge is far ahead of us. In this area, and all the way to the Starinek Ocean away to the west, are contained most of the creatures populating Lysenka II. The rest of the planet is almost entirely empty, except for indigenous spiders and a few winged insects. Don’t forget that solar physicists and geognosticians tell us that this world is a very long way behind our worlds in development. Which is no doubt why it is the last refuge of capitalism.’

      There was some laughter at this sally. Although most of the tourists had no way of knowing what exactly capitalism was, the word had retained smutty connotations over the ages.

      ‘That’s the River Dunder we can see occasionally over to your left. It is not large as rivers on this planet go. On the other hemisphere is a river surveyed from the air which is almost twice as long as River Amasonia on Earth. The Dunder flows over the ancient rift valley in which we now find ourselves. It is a river with many fish in the equivalent of an early Carboniferous Age development. The experts tell us that it is some 3,130 million years since Lysenka II became cool enough to allow the steam in the atmosphere to condense as rain. Now over to your right you can see if you just turn your heads another grove of horsetails. Trees very like them once flourished on Earth.’

      ‘I think she plans to send us to sleep,’ Kordan said in a low voice to Sygiek.

      ‘We can sleep at refreshment-time. Isn’t this a fine road our people have built? We could conquer any planet in the galaxy.’

      ‘I have never entirely understood why we have not expanded our sphere of influence in space.’

      ‘ “Utopia is an attitude, not a dimension,” if I may quote.’

      ‘All the same… Of course, I don’t question…’

      The superb road unwound before them, hour after hour. When it ran beside the River Dunder, more game was sighted, most of it fleeing for cover. The other three buses had disappeared into a tan distance which quivered in the noon heat.

      Rubyna Constanza had taken a break from her commentary. Now she was back again, smiling prettily as before.

      ‘You will have noticed many more animals beside the river. Mostly they catch fish, or they prey on those who catch fish. They are very clever at concealment. The brave System workers who built this road have tales to tell of their viciousness. Those workers and the soldiers who defended them were the only members of our people ever to be allowed weapons on Lysenka II – with the exception of the garrison that permanently defends Peace City, of course.

      ‘As I expect you all understand,’ and she gave them a beautiful smile as reward for that understanding, ‘perhaps the most remarkable event in the entire history of Lysenka, from the point of view of homo uniformis, was the arrival here of a colony ship from Earth, 1.09 million years ago in the past, in bitter pre-utopian times on our home planet. In those far-off days, before our culture was established worldwide, and before the science of cratobatics was developed, fifty light years was a challengingly long distance. The colony ship was not heading for the Lysenkan system but for another system even farther away. However, something went wrong with the primitive drive, and the ship came down on this planet.’ She extended her hand forwards, pointing through the front window. ‘It made a forced landing somewhere ahead there, not so many kilometres from the Dunderzee Gorge. That colony ship belonged to the now defunct homo