A Planet Called Utopia by J. T. McIntosh

Author:J. T. McIntosh [McIntosh, J. T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-5963-1
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 1979-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

10

It seemed to Cronyn that the next day nothing happened.

He didn’t see Jerome, he didn’t see Elizabeth, he didn’t see any of the Joneses. He did see Arleen, all day, but after the confidences of the previous morning she withdrew completely into her shell, dispensing general information almost frantically and nothing else.

He certainly learned plenty about Utopia, and that after all was his job.

He learned, for instance, something which had previously puzzled him, why Jerome Jones, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world outside government — and the government of Utopia seemed to consist of faceless men — had not been able to raise two billion for the release of Elizabeth.

“While we’re earning, we must save a certain percentage of what we earn,” Arleen explained. “We’re not allowed to touch it, even if we get in debt. We’re a rich society with a high standard of living, but only because we’re made to be. Young people here, like most places, don’t have much. I don’t have much. I took the job of being your guide partly for a reason you know, but partly because it pays better than anything else I can find …”

It was the only time, all day, that she referred to the subject that had occupied them so much the previous morning, and she shied away from it immediately.

“As people get older they’re supposed to be richer and more important. A sort of job fulfilment, social fulfilment, achievement if you like. So they have to put away money and it collects interest and gradually they get richer and have more control of what they own. But they’re still not allowed to spend everything and go broke. Jerome Jones, worth a lot more than two billion, isn’t allowed to draw it and give it to a bunch of kidnappers — ”

“How come they didn’t know that?”

“They did know that but they figured he could do it some other way, like raising it from the rest of the Joneses.”

“Then how come he didn’t do that?”

“Because Elizabeth simply wasn’t worth it. If you’re too greedy you get nowhere. Jerome Jones personally decided to nominate Elizabeth. Who else was going to back that? Not the family connections of Doreen Jones or Glen Nelson. Not with money. And remember, they too can’t touch all their capital. Some of it is reserve. All the Joneses were ready to go along with the choice of Elizabeth until somebody snatched her. Then it became a personal matter for Jerome Jones, who nominated her …”

He learned why there were fifty deaths a day in Utopia. It was not much and yet it seemed too much in a world of so-called immortals, where there were never traffic accidents or train accidents and hardly ever flying accidents (there was hardly any flying that was not rigorously controlled).

There were murders. Husbands didn’t kill wives, or vice versa, because there weren’t any husbands or wives. But people still hated people. And two people who hated each

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