13. Stranger in a Strange Time
Indra was not quite as sympathetic as he had hoped: perhaps, after all, there was some sexual jealousy in their relationship. And - much more serious - what they wryly labelled the Dragon Debacle led to their first real argument.
It began innocently enough, when Indra complained:
'People are always asking me why I've devoted my life to such a horrible period of history, and it's not much of an answer to say that there were even worse ones.'
'Then why are you interested in my century?'
'Because it marks the transition between barbarism and civilization.'
'Thank you. Just call me Conan.'
'Conan? The only one I know is the man who invented Sherlock Holmes.'
'Never mind - sorry I interrupted. Of course, we in the so-called developed countries thought we were civilized. At least war wasn't respectable any more, and the United Nations was always doing its best to stop the wars that did break out.'
'Not very successfully: I'd give it about three out of ten. But what we find incredible is the way that people - right up to the early 2000s! - calmly accepted behaviour we would consider atrocious. And believed in the most mind-boggled -'
'Boggling.'
'- nonsense, which surely any rational person would dismiss out of hand.'
'Examples, please.'
'Well, your really trivial loss started me doing some research, and I was appalled by what I found. Did you know that every year in some countries thousands of little girls were hideously mutilated to preserve their virginity? Many of them died - but the authorities turned a blind eye.'
'I agree that was terrible - but what could my government do about it?'
'A great deal - if it wished. But that would have offended the people who supplied it with oil and bought its weapons, like the landmines that killed and maimed civilians by the thousand.'
'You don't understand, Indra. Often we had no choice: we couldn't reform the whole world. And didn't somebody once say "Politics is the art of the possible"?'
'Quite true - which is why only second-rate minds go into it. Genius likes to challenge the impossible.'
'Well, I'm glad you have a good supply of genius, so you can put things right.'
'Do I detect a hint of sarcasm? Thanks to our computers, we can run political experiments in cyberspace before trying them out in practice. Lenin was unlucky; he was born a hundred years too soon. Russian communism might have worked - at least for a while - if it had had microchips. And had managed to avoid Stalin.'
Poole was constantly amazed by Indra's knowledge of his age - as well as by her ignorance of so much that he took for granted. In a way, he had the reverse problem. Even if he lived the hundred years that had been confidently promised him, he could never learn enough to feel at home. In any conversation, there would always be references he did not understand, and jokes that would go over his head. Worse still, he would always feel on the verge of some "faux pas" - about to create some social disaster that would embarrass even the best of his new friends...
Such as the occasion when he was lunching, fortunately in his own quarters, with Indra and Professor Anderson. The meals that emerged from the autochef were always perfectly acceptable, having been designed to match his physiological requirements. But they were certainly nothing to get excited about, and would have been the despair of a twenty-first-century gourmet.
Then, one day, an unusually tasty dish appeared, which brought back vivid memories of the deer-hunts and barbecues of his youth. However, there was something unfamiliar about both flavour and texture, so Poole asked the obvious question.
Anderson merely smiled, but for a few seconds Indra looked as if she was about to be sick. Then she recovered and said: 'You tell him - after we've finished eating.'
Now what have I done wrong? Poole asked himself. Half an hour later, with Indra rather pointedly absorbed in a video display at the other e…
