Strange Relations (1 of 5 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
Strange Relations by Philip Jose Farmer. Copyright 2005 by Philip Jose Farmer.
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STRANGE RELATIONS

Philip José Farmer


THE LOVERS

CHAPTER 1

"I've got to get out," Hal Yarrow could hear someone muttering from a great distance. "There must be a way out."

He woke up with a start, and he realized that he had been the one talking. Moreover, what he had said as he emerged from his dream had no connection at all to it. His half-waking words and the dream were two discrete events.

But what had he meant by those mumbled words? And where was he? Had he actually traveled in time or had he experienced a subjective dream? It had been so vivid that he was slow in returning to this level of the world.

A look at the man sitting beside him cleared his mind. He was in the coach to Sigmen City in the year 550 B.S. (Old Style 3050 A.D., his scholar's mind told him.) He was not, as in the time travel? dream? on a strange planet many light-years from here, many years from now. Nor was he face to face with the glorious Isaac Sigmen, the Forerunner, real be his name.

The man beside him looked sidewise at Hal. He was a lean fellow with high cheekbones, straight black hair, and brown eyes which had a slight Mongoloid fold. He was dressed in the light blue uniform of the engineering class and wore on his left breast an aluminum emblem which indicated he was in the upper echelon. Probably, he was an electronics engineer with a degree from one of the better trade schools.

The man cleared his throat, and he said, in American, "A thousand pardons, abba. I know I shouldn't be talking to you without permission. But you did say something to me as you awoke. And, since you're in this cabin, you have temporarily equated yourself. In any event, I've been dying to ask you a question. I'm not called Nosy Sam for nothing."

He laughed nervously and said, "Couldn't help overhearing what you told the stewardess when she challenged your right to sit here. Did I hear you right, or did you actually tell her you was a goat?"

Hal smiled and said, "No. Not a goat. I'm a joat. From the initial letters of jack-of-all-trades. You weren't too mistaken, however. In the professional fields, a joat has about as much prestige as a goat."

He sighed and thought of the humiliations endured because he had chosen not to be a narrow specialist. He looked out the window because he did not want to encourage his seatmate to talk, He saw a bright glow far off and up, undoubtedly a military spaceship entering the atmosphere. The few civilian ships made a slower and unobtrusive descent.

From the height of sixty thousand meters, he looked down on the curve of the North American continent. It was a blaze of light with, here and there, some small bands of darkness and an occasional large band. The latter would be a mountain range or body of water on which man had not yet succeeded in building residences or industries. The great city. Megalopolis. Think--only three hundred years ago, the entire continent had a mere two million population. In another fifty years--unless something catastrophic happened, such as war between the Haijac Union and the Israeli Republics--the population of North America would be fourteen, maybe fifteen, billion!

The only area in which living room was deliberately denied was the Hudson Bay Wildlife Preserve. He had left the Preserve only fifteen minutes ago, yet he felt sick because he would not be able to return to it for a long time.

He sighed again. The Hudson Bay Wildlife Preserve. Trees by the thousands, mountains, broad blue lakes, birds, foxes, rabbits, even, the rangers said, bobcats. There were so few, however, that in ten years they would be added to the long list of extinct animals.

Hal could breathe in the Preserve, could feel unconstricted. Free. He also could feel lonely and uneasy at times. But he was just beginning to get over that when his research among the twenty French-speaking Inhabitants of the Preserve was finished.

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