Thirteen

We had stopped perhaps half a kilometer outside the outermost building of the city. St. Peter suggested at this point that we ram the first stage into the wall of grass to our right to give us a kind of anchor; and though there was no perceptible current, we felt that he knew best. It took a bit of maneuvering, which created great plumes of fire in various directions, attracting a good deal of attention.

By the time we were firmly set in place, quite a crowd of people had gathered to look at us. They were all more or less the size of St. Peter and Cleopatra--about a meter in diameter--but of every color imaginable, including some of the black people that were infrared or ultraviolet to their companions.

It seemed that each person had his own characteristic color, which was recognizable by those who knew him the way we recognize the subtle differences in the shape of a face. In that respect, we were like white people who go to Africa or China and can't distinguish one person from another for a while. As we got to know people, we came to make fewer false identifications with others who nearly matched them.

Interestingly, one of the things that enabled us to distinguish the people was that each one had a distinctive way of making the shapes that were the language--a sort of visual tone of voice. Since they used to talk to us in both English and their own language, both because they felt it more comfortable to do this and because they thought that eventually we would pick up some of it (which Michele began to do rather quickly), we at least got to know each of them better than we otherwise would if they had remained their polite egg in our presence.

St. Peter and Cleopatra were obviously giving a lecture to the crowd on the strange object and its inhabitants, because both of them were in front of the group, and both were talking at the same time at a furious rate, with several of their eyes on each other, several on us, and most directed toward the crowd, where one or another person would flash a question and would--we supposed--get his reply without interrupting the flow of the discourse.

The listeners seemed to have no trouble following both of the speakers at once, since the eyes of everyone in the group were divided among each of them and us; and occasionally one or a small group would come closer to have a good look at some part of the ship, while still keeping three or four eyes back on the speakers or at some questioner in the audience.

At one point, either St. Peter or Cleopatra said something funny, because they all spiraled backwards in a hearty laugh; and by accident, we found out what it dealt with, because someone telegraphed a question, and we heard St. Peter say over the speaker in the ship, "Hello, there!" at which they all laughed again.

"I wonder why they think it's so funny how we talk?" said Michele.

"Obviously," I answered, "they never thought of communicating by radio before."

"I suppose you're right," she said.

They seemed to think it rather impolite to imitate St. Peter's examination of the ship and swarm all over it without permission, because, though some came close, no one actually touched it, and they only looked in at us from a respectful distance, making sure that we had a view past them to the two speakers. "I think we'd better get into our space suits," said Michele. "I imagine we're going to have to go out in a minute and be introduced to all these people."

"Do you think it's safe for all of us to go out at once?" I asked.

"Sure," answered Mike. "There's enough of them out there to tear the whole ship apart if they had a mind to it; and we'd be a lot safer if we didn't let on that we were afraid of what they'd do to us."

"I was thinking more in terms of doing us some harm by accident, like what happened last time."

Michele made deprecating noises, and this concern of mine had been anticipated by St. Peter, who at this moment was saying to us, "We would be exceptionally gratified if you would honor us by emerging from the confines of your vehicle. To alleviate any trepidation on your part consequent on the deplorable misadventure with Michele earlier, I have admonished them against physical contact."

As he spoke, evidently saying the same thing in his own language, several of the members of the crowd looked as if they were about to make the backwards somersault, but had checked themselves out of courtesy.

"Thank you," I said. "We are preparing ourselves now, and will be out shortly." I found at this stage that when I was talking to these people, my speech became rather literary.

After we had emerged, which, as you will recall, took a bit of time, St. Peter led us a little way from the ship to where the others had gathered. "I find it difficult to distinguish you in that raiment," he said, "and so I would appreciate it if you would yourselves pronounce your names."

We did so, and then, one by one, the Jovians swam past us, paused, and each made the series of shapes that was his own name. One or two made awkward and touching attempts at saying our names, which caused a kind of shudder among those who were far enough back so that they were unlikely to be seen--something I took to be a Jovian giggle. Several became egg-shaped at this, especially if they were close to us--which I interpreted as embarrassment at the gauche behavior of their compatriots.

In general, the reception was extremely stylized and formal; and I must say the shapes that were the names of the people were in many cases quite breathtakingly beautiful; but it took a long, long time for everyone there to meet each of us.

When it was over, Michele said to St. Peter--who immediately began flashing into a series of shapes, as a kind of simultaneous translation--"Will you tell them that we thank them very much for their courtesy, and will they please forgive us if we don't remember many of them later. Their names are just confusing to us, and anyway our memories are very bad, I'm afraid, in comparison with yours; we can't learn things just by being exposed to them once the way you can."

"We understand perfectly," said St. Peter, and the others said something more or less in unison, which was clearly agreement.

There followed an examination of the ship, which took another couple of hours. A few expressed a desire to go inside, and I explained through St. Peter that inside there was gas, not liquid, and that it was probably noxious to them. Cleopatra remarked, "Then that is the explanation of your emergence in those garments; you must be encapsulated in that gas in order to be comfortable--or is it essential for your survival?"

Michele immediately said we would die without it, something that gave me a twinge of misgiving. Granted that everyone at the moment seemed totally friendly and conscientious, it was still not too good an idea, I thought, to reveal to them how many different ways we could be killed. Of course, only St. Peter and Cleopatra could understand us at the moment, and they had already saved Michele's life, so there was probably no real danger, but one never knew--and Cleopatra, for one, seemed very interested in the subject. But the damage, if any, had been done, and given their minds was permanent; so there was nothing to do but hope for the best now.

The crowd eventually dispersed, with only six or seven remaining. St. Peter said, "You have indulged our curiosity with exemplary patience; and now it is our honor and delight to be able to afford you a brief sight-seeing excursion to our own habitations."

"That is very kind of you," said Michele, "only you must not move too fast; it's hard for us to swim in these suits."

Fortunately, we were right next door to the most outlying of the buildings, and would be able to struggle over there without too much difficulty, though it was an exhausting chore to move from place to place. Before we got more than a few meters, Mike said, "this is impossible. We can't be fighting like this just to walk around; we'll have to think of something to make it easy to move."

Cleopatra heard him, and said, "If you could move as we do, taking in the liquid and forcing it out, you would find it exceedingly facile. It seems your vehicle is constructed on something of this principle; and so I take it that you are aware of it."

"Yes, the principle's clear enough," said Mike, "but how could we manage it? I could probably put together a portable pump if I had the materials; but I don't think there's anything in the ship we could use, and all you have here is plastic. And what'd we use for energy?"

"I must introduce you to a friend of mine, who fortunately lives propinquously," said Cleopatra. "His avocation is mechanical contrivances; and it may be that he could devise an instrument that would alleviate your difficulty and at the same time be commodious to carry."

"I think I'll skip the sight-seeing for now, then, if it's all right with you," said Mike, "if you could take me to him. We've got to solve this problem before we do anything else. You two can go with St. Peter."

I wasn't happy about Mike's going off alone, but he was obviously right. Shortly before we left, we worked out a temporary "alleviation of the difficulty" by having the Jovians take our hands and lead us along. Cleopatra wrapped a sort of tentacle around Mike's arm and vanished with him around a corner; and we went on either side of St. Peter, who spread himself into a kind of stingray and held each of us under our armpits.

If the outsides of the buildings, with their curving walls, floors, and roofs, were odd to look at, the insides were even more strange. The first thing you discovered was that they weren't even buildings in our sense of the term. You didn't go in through a door, but into a space between the floor and a wall or between two walls. Most of the walls do not touch other walls, and so the space inside the building is not really enclosed, but defined more or less as we define the space inside a large room by room dividers. Everything is suspended from a central thread and by extender rods that keep the walls in certain positions relative to each other; they just hang there in space, as it were, creating a place, making an inside and an outside, and as a means of breaking up the light streaming from below into shafts and interesting patterns of brightness and shadow.

The basic wall-material, as I mentioned, was a kind of Styrofoam; but there were smaller pieces of different sorts of plastic with different textures and surfaces, used to accent different areas and reflect the light differently. The average thickness of a wall was about ten centimeters; but it could vary greatly, presumably for aesthetic reasons, since there was no structural reason for anything to be any particular size, shape, or density.

One of the more disconcerting aspects of being in a house was the floor, which was not, in the first place, one solid piece of material, but usually a number of different slabs, leaving all sorts of spaces for the light to come through. Nor were the slabs either flat or horizontal. In the first place, this was not necessary, since no one ever stood on them--everyone and everything floated in this world--and secondly, it was not feasible, since if they had been flat and horizontal, the buildings would have been very dark, none having its own light.

There was no need of any artificial light, of course, since there never was any night on the planet. The small amount of light that the sun added to the surface was much less than the light that came from the hot center of the planet. If you looked up very carefully, you noticed a slight difference in the "sky" every five hours as the planet rotated; but it was not enough to give anyone a sense of a day as we know it.

But whenever I went into a building, all during my whole stay on Jupiter, I had that acrophobic dizziness I used to experience in the gallery of Music Hall in Cincinnati. I would swim over a gap in the floor and feel as if I were about to fall through; or I would be over a part of the floor that fell off at a forty-five degree angle and feel as if I were standing crookedly. It is amazing how disorienting not having something resembling solid ground under you can be, even if you can't sink any further than you happen to be at the moment. In a way, we were like the fish that swim in and out of the castles in an aquarium--except that even those rest on the bottom, and for us there was no bottom.

Speaking of fish swimming in and out, the Jovian animals (which of course were all fish) moved freely about the city as well as the countryside, and frequently were to be seen inside the houses. The dwellers inside did not seem bothered by these intrusions, and in fact there were some animals that had become house pets for some of the people, with that special kind of relationship we have, the animal coming to the house for food and caresses, like a child; but unlike our pets never tied up or forced to stay home (as if there was any way to force an animal to remain in one of the houses which had so many openings). Most of the animals preferred to be unattached to anyone, however, and in fact did not seem to like it inside buildings. They were, I suppose, what could be called wild, though I never saw a wild animal that was savage, no matter how large they were. Larger animals would occasionally stray into the city; and once or twice I saw one the size of an elephant (or a small whale) be driven out of the city limits by the inhabitants, as we drive animals by making frightening movements and so on in front of them. They tended to knock walls out of place, I was told, and it was a nuisance if they got into the city.

If the houses were always open to animals (and to people too), this does not mean that the people had no privacy. In one sense, they had no real privacy from animals, but no one bothered with that. But inside any house were many recesses in which a person could be completely alone, away from the sight of anyone; and it was understood that no one ever went into another person's house except accompanied by that person.

Of course, this in turn meant that you couldn't visit someone unless you saw him outside, and you and he agreed to go to his house; the concept of going to a person's house and knocking on a door (or in this case a wall) to rouse him to the idea that you wanted to see him was totally outside their way of thinking.

"But suppose," said St. Peter, "that he was meditating or busy and your visit would be a disturbance."

"Well, when we're busy, we just refuse to answer."

"But in that case, what happens when the person who was calling discovers that you were inside and did not acknowledge the knock?"

"Well, we assume that he realizes that we had something important to do."

"I am sorry," said St. Peter, "but I find that almost incomprehensible. I find it difficult to see how on the one hand a caller would be willing to disturb a person, who might be too polite to refuse to answer, and so have to give up what is engrossing him at the moment, and on the other hand, a person who is being called on would be willing to give the impression to a caller that there is something more important than receiving the visit from a friend. Wouldn't it be far more sensible, if you wanted to meet someone, to meet him when you knew he was available to be met, and leave him alone when it might be that he has some other occupation that he can best perform alone? In that way, neither of you is put in a false position."

"Of course. But if you had to wait until you ran into him by chance outside, then you might not see him for days or weeks--or years, for that matter."

As I implied earlier, for the people on Jupiter, "day," "week," and "year" had only abstract significance, since there was, as I said, nothing obvious like light and darkness to mark the passage of time. They knew about a short time and a long time; but measurement of time had no practical significance for them. In this case, St. Peter couldn't understand the problem; if you would meet the person eventually, then you would meet him sooner or later, and whatever it was you had in mind could be taken up then. Why insist on it's being taken up in circumstances when it might be counterproductive?

"But of course, you can forget why you want to see someone if you have to wait half a lifetime to see him."

"Ah, well, in that case," he answered, "I can see your point. I suppose that would cast a different light on the matter."

Which made me realize that things look very different if you never forget anything at all, and you have--or think you have--an infinite time ahead of you to get what you want done.

I did hope, however, that Mike wouldn't find the pump-maker at home today.

One of St. Peter's friends--a person we later called Wordsworth--happened to be outside a nearby house where he lived. He asked St. Peter if we would care to look inside.

The house was in one sense typical, with interior walls apparently suspended in space at various locations, and the floors and ceilings tipped and bowed in all sorts of crazy ways. The floor was sky-blue, as it happened, and the ceiling a rather dun color, while the walls were pale pinks and greens; it made me want to turn myself over and float upside down--especially since the ceiling pieces were almost horizontal, so as to reflect the light back.

Because of the color of the ceiling, the room had a warm, peaceful tone to it, and gave the impression of a quiet place to think in. There were various objets d'art either attached to walls or suspended by threads at strategic points; generally speaking, they were sorts of sculptures (in plastic, of course), which were abstract, rather flowing shapes that complemented the curves of the walls, or led the eye from one part of the room to another.

A couple of the walls were rough, almost like brick or stone, used for contrast; and three of these enclosed an almost completely dark area which you entered from the top--and it really was dark, not one of those colors we couldn't see. Wordsworth used this, we found out, when he was contemplating something extremely difficult or profound.

He also had one wall which was a holographic mural of a Jovian forest, with animals peering out from between the plants. It was almost life size, and opened out that room (or rather area) into an eerie kind of vastness, because even from the glimpses I had so far had of the forests, there was movement in them, and everything here, naturally, was petrified, though in perfect three dimensions. Personally, I found it rather frightening, possibly because it looked so real to me that its immobility reminded me of death; but to the people on Jupiter, who were used to it as a picture and who had no experience of death, undoubtedly it did not have that negative overtone to it. In any case, it took your breath away, and was certainly lovely.

After we left, thanking Wordsworth profusely, Michele said to St. Peter that we found the place fascinating, but that we were extremely tired, and we thought we ought to go back to the ship and take a rest. She was expressing what was uppermost in my own mind.

"Ah, you do rest, as we also do," he said. "Excellent. I will lead you to your ship at once." He took us again under the armpits and sped off with us, darting around corners so that our feet swung in great arcs behind us, and we lay, as it were, on our backs and watched the buildings above fly by.

When we arrived at the ship, he said he would wait for us; and when we explained that it would be a rather long time--finally getting him to understand the interval in terms of the delay-time he knew of between transmissions from earth--he said that it would not matter. He would rest himself, he said, beside the ship so that he could be there when we came out again.

We told him not to trouble, but he insisted that it was no trouble at all, that he had nothing else to do. In fact, he seemed surprised when we implied that there were things that people had to do in any meaningful sense. "One does as one pleases, does one not?" he said.

Once inside, Michele said, "You know where we are? We're in Utopia."

"I more or less got that impression," I said.

"Shall we call it Utopia?" she asked.

"It sounds sort of inadequate," I replied. "Thomas More's Utopia was on earth, after all, and the people were happy, but they worked hard. Everybody here seems to be on a perpetual vacation."

"Well, you're the one who studied Greek. What's a word that would do it justice?"

"Well, you know, Utopia really means 'nowhere.' Let's see if we can manufacture something that's not quite as unreal--how about 'Acosmia'? The alpha privative, meaning not, and 'cosmos' for world; a place outside the world we know."

"It has a ring to it," she said. "I'll buy it. Mike," she added as he came into the cabin (we had heard him up in the first stage) "we've found a name for the place." And she told him.

"Okay, if you want to be fancy. But I have something fancier; our Acosmian earthling-transporters." He held up three small objects that looked like enlarged policemen's whistles, about the size of basketballs; one was red, one blue, and one green shiny plastic.

"Aren't they neat? And they work like a charm. This little thing attaches to your belt, and they fit right under the oxygen pack. You can regulate the speed from somewhere under a kilometer an hour up to about twenty, which is plenty fast enough; and you can even change direction, just by doing this," and he demonstrated. There was a deflecting nozzle activated by a turn of the shoulder.

"It's a little tricky to work at first, but we'll catch on quick. The three colors are so they can tell us apart, of course. Now what's this about this name you thought up?"

We told him how we came to formulate the name from the fact that we thought we were in Utopia.

"Yeah, it sure looks like it, doesn't it? But there's a fly in the ointment somewhere; wait and see."