Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [54]
Why did the Doctor have to keep on and on at the poor old codger? ‘If everything is automated,’ the Doctor was saying, ‘nobody needs to work. Is that part of the paradise?’
‘Some choose to work,’ answered the President. ‘We need a few to keep things turning over. It’s a way of increasing one’s capital: and ultimately one’s status. But only the bondservants are under any obligation.’ His nostrils dilated as he swallowed a yawn. The Brigadier caught a movement out of the corner of his eye: the woman Onya, keeping a careful eye on her charge.
‘So you have a population largely made up of the unemployed?’ the Doctor insisted.
‘Of shareholders. Of consumers,’ said the President wearily.
‘Oh, they’re on a very high dole of course. Happily unemployed, apparently. You seem to have solved capitalism’s biggest problem, President.’
This roused the President almost to indignation. He explained, as vehemently as the weak old voice would let him, that on Parakon they had solved every problem.
Because there was only one producer, the Corporation, wasteful competition was replaced by rational planning.
Nation states – and armies – had become redundant.
Because people were very happy with the way things were run, all political parties bar one had faded away.
‘We have been elected, unopposed, for over forty years,’
he concluded in feeble triumph.
‘With the slogan, “What’s good for the Corporation is good for the planet,” no doubt,’ said the Doctor.
He really was giving the poor old chap a roasting, thought the Brigadier. Like one of those whatever-you-say-I’m-agin-it fellows on the box. Still, he had to admit that it did all sound a bit too good to he true.
‘You sound cynical, Doctor,’ the President said. ‘But what you say is precisely correct. As your own world will find out for itself, if you choose to join us in our prosperity.’
The Brigadier rejoined the conversation. ‘You have no opposition at all, sir? There are no dissidents? Nobody who disagrees on principle?’
‘Why should there be?’ said the President. ‘Our people have everything they could wish for.’
‘Everything that money can buy,’ said the Doctor, blandly.
‘Exactly,’ said the President, and yawned quite openly.
When the flycar took off and swooped out of the underground park into the night sky, Jeremy clung on to his seat like a little boy riding the big dipper for the first time. ‘Oh. Oh. Oh!’ he squeaked, eyes round and jaw dropped.
‘O-o-oh!’ he said again, as it left the environs of the palace and started to weave its way through the swarm of similar machines flying every which way above – and below – the city streets. At one moment so low it might as well have been an ordinary car motoring past the dazzling shop windows, at another climbing almost vertically up towards the roof tops, the flycar missed a crash by inches time after time.
‘What’s up?’ said Waldo.
‘Well, I mean, there’s nobody flying this thing!’
Waldo grinned. ‘No need. It’s locked into the city grid.
Far safer.’
Sarah, who was relishing the ride as much as Jeremy was hating it. gave herself up to the experience of the moment and let the turmoil of emotion engendered by her ER
experience slide away into the past.
‘How does it know which way to go?’ she said.
‘It’s pre-programmed with the coordinates of all the places I visit regularly,’ he replied.
‘Press-button flying.’
‘That’s it. Starting with the first button, which brings it back home.’
‘Like an old hack to the stable. Super,’ said Jeremy, trying hard. His face now closely matched the greenish hue of his tunic.
As they left the busy centre, the traffic thinned out enough for the flycar to settle down to a more or less steady course. As she relaxed. Sarah found herself slipping back into her questioning mode.
‘So who are these people who are giving the party?’
‘Just friends.’
‘Are they in the Guard too?’
‘No.’
‘What do they do for a living?’
Was she interviewing him? So what? She wanted to know the answers.
‘Nothing at all.’
‘Ah. the idle rich.