The Moon Moth and Other Stories by Jack Vance

Author:Jack Vance [Vance, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Short Stories, Fiction
ISBN: 9780575109933
Google: wO6-yZ4lgLEC
Amazon: B006FIHB0I
Publisher: Gateway
Published: 2011-09-28T14:00:00+00:00

Luke descended to the Bureau of Abstracts, and found no difficulty gaining admission to the general office. In contrast to the rather nebulous intellectualism of Policy Evaluation, the Bureau of Abstracts seemed workaday and matter-of-fact. A middle-aged woman, cheerfully fat, inquired Luke’s business, and when Luke professed himself a journalist, conducted him about the premises. They went from the main lobby, walled in antique cream-colored plaster with gold scrollwork, past the small fusty cubicles, where clerks sat at projection-desks scanning ribbons of words, extracting idea-sequences, emending, excising, condensing, cross-referring, finally producing the abstract to be submitted to Policy Evaluation. Luke’s fat and cheerful guide brewed them a pot of tea; she asked questions which Luke answered in general terms, straining his voice and pursing his mouth in the effort to seem agreeable and hearty. He himself asked questions. “I’m interested in a set of statistics on the scarcity of metals, or ores, or something similar which recently went up to Policy Evaluation. Would you know anything about this?”

“Heavens no,” the woman responded. “There’s just too much material coming in—the business of the entire Organization.”

“Where does this material come from? Who sends it to you?”

The woman made a humorous little grimace of distaste. “From Files, down on Sublevel 12. I can’t tell you much, because we don’t associate with the personnel. They’re low status: clerks and the like. Sheer automatons.”

Luke expressed an interest in the source of the Bureau of Abstracts’ information. The woman shrugged, as if to say, everyone to his own taste. “I’ll call down to the Chief File Clerk; I know him, very slightly.”

The Chief File Clerk, Mr. Sidd Boatridge, was self-important and brusque, as if aware of the low esteem in which he was held by the Bureau of Abstracts. He dismissed Luke’s questions with a stony face of indifference. “I really have no idea, sir. We file, index, and cross-index material into the Information Bank, but concern ourselves very little with outgoing data. My duties in fact are mainly administrative. I’ll call in one of the under-clerks; he can tell you more than I can.”

The under-clerk who answered Boatridge’s summons was a short turnip-faced man with matted red hair. “Take Mr. Grogatch into the outer office,” said the Chief File Clerk testily. “He wants to ask you a few questions.”

In the outer office, out of the Chief File Clerk’s hearing, the under-clerk became rather surly and pompous, as if he had divined the level of Luke’s status. He referred to himself as a “line-tender” rather than a “file clerk”, the latter apparently being a classification of lesser prestige. His “line-tending” consisted of sitting beside a panel which glowed and blinked with a thousand orange and green lights. “The orange lights indicate information going down into the Bank,” said the file clerk. “The green lights show where somebody up-level is drawing information out—generally at the Bureau of Abstracts.”

Luke observed the orange and green flickers for a moment. “What information is being transmitted now?”

“Couldn’t say,” the file clerk grunted.

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