Manshape by John Brunner Read Free Book Online

off from the rest of the human community. Well, like yours were until recently…”
    But they must have been told this over and over! Why waste his breath?
    Badly worried now by Thorkild’s peculiar incoherence, van Heemskirk hastened to cover for him. “It’s the most remarkable achievement of our species!” he declaimed, using his public orator’s voice. “From here, invisible links reach out across the lightyears to unite planet with planet as the strong bonds of affection unite a family. Yes, precisely, for in spite of temporary separation we are one great family after all, are we not?”
    Prompt on his beginning to speak, Mother Uskia had turned, making sure her microphone was aligned to catch his words. With more discernment, Long disregarded the politician’s fit of orotundity. As soon as it was over, he addressed Thorkild.
    “It would appear to be a complex and demanding post that you hold, Director!”
    “It is!” van Heemskirk assured him. “One of the most responsible in the galaxy!”
    Long did not even shift his gaze to acknowledgethe interruption; van Heemskirk registered the snub, and flushed. A stir of amusement coloured Thorkild’s grey thoughts. If Long could take van Heemskirk aback so easily, he must be a remarkable individual.
    Remembering belatedly that the original question had been aimed at himself, he gave a nod.
    “And are you satisfied?” Long pursued.
    “Satisfied?” Thorkild revolved the word in his mind. “Not yet. I guess I shan’t be until all the worlds where human beings have settled are tied into the Bridge System. And possibly not even then.”
    “As far as one can tell at present,” Long observed, “this may already have occurred, or be on the verge of doing so. I gather it has been a decade since the last new planet was, as you say, tied in. But set aside the unknowable, the possibility that the Bridge System may already have expanded to its limit. What I meant to ask you was rather whether your work is satisfying. Does that make my intention clearer?”
    It would, if I knew what satisfaction was…
    This is the nature of my job: pipe people from here to there, shove freight around in massive quantities, stand foster-father to decisions taken by a beery drunkard singing a dirty song—when what I really want is to be a father, albeit of a chance-got child. Even taking my own decisions would be a surrogate! But all of them, every last single mortal one of them, are constrained! They are forced on me! I am denied the liberty of being wrong!
    Had Saxena suffered this agony? Was this the reason he had killed himself? It wasn’t obviously the agony of being rejected by Alida…
    But aloud he said, “The work is there and because I can do it, I do do it. So far as that goes, I guess it’s satisfying.”
    “The way I understand the matter,” Long said, the corners of his mouth turning down to signal disapproval,“you are in charge of what has gradually become Earth’s prime reason for continuing. The Bridge System has repeatedly been described to us as the greatest gift the mother planet has ever offered to her children.”
    The turn of phrase he employed attracted Uskia’s complete attention; perhaps it was deliberate, perhaps casual…
    “Given that you are in overall control of this operation, it should follow that you enjoy the greatest personal fulfilment experienced by anyone in the whole of history. Yet I sensed, a moment ago, that you did not wholly concur with the way. Responsible van Heemskirk defined the Bridges—like, he said, bonds of affection that connect the human family. Well?”
    Uskia, as usual, angled her microphone to catch Thorkild’s reply. Perhaps it was the sudden irritating mannerism which provoked him into rapping out words before he had thought through what he planned to say.
    “It’s more like the groping of a barnacle, or the web of a spider,” he blurted. “If you really want to know! Or even less purposeful than that, even less