Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [275]
There was some loud laughter.
By slow degrees Lanark had come to sit upright again. The centre of the circle was empty. Far to the right Weems stood beside Lord and Lady Monboddo. Microphones protruded from a low bank of roses on the tablecloth before him. All the guests on that side of the circle were pink. On the other side they were sallow or brown, with the five members of the black bloc directly facing Monboddo. Several dark delegates talked quietly among themselves, not attending to the speech. Weems was saying, “… will be far too deep for me, I’m afraid, and what I do understand I’ll almost certainly disagree with. But he has heard so much from us in the past three days that it is only fair to allow him his revenge. And so, Lord Monboddo, I call on you to summarize the work of the council, Then, Now and Tomorrow.”
Weems sat down amid applause. Monboddo had been smiling down at the table with half-shut eyes. He arose and stood with one hand resting on the table, the other in his pocket, the smiling head tilted a little to one side. He waited until applause, faint conversation, coughs and stirrings sank into silence. As the silence continued his figure, casual yet unmoving, gained power and authority until the whole great ring of guests was like an audience of carved statues. Lanark was amazed that so many could make so complete a silence. It weighed on him like a crystal bubble filling the top of the tent and pressing down on his skull: he could shatter it any time by yelling a single obscenity, but bit his lips hard to stop that happening. Monboddo began to speak.
“Some men are born modest. Some achieve modesty. Some have modesty thrust upon them. I fear that Sir Trevor has firmly placed me in the last of these categories.”
Laughter went up, especially from Weems.
“Once I was an ambitious young department chief. I launched policies and had flashes of creative brilliance which, believe me, my friends, verged, I thought, upon genius! Well, ambition has met its nemesis. I now stand on the top tip of our vast pyramid and create nothing. I can only receive the brilliant proposals of younger, more actively placed colleagues and find ways to reconcile and promote them. I examine the options and discard, without emotions, those which do not fit our system. Such work uses a very small pan of human intelligence.”
“Oh, nonsense!” shouted Weems cheerfully.
“Not nonsense, no, my friend. I promise you that in three years all the limited skills of a council supremo will be embodied in the circuits of a Quantum-Cortexin humanoid, just as the skills of secretaries and special policemen are embodied. It may be my privilege to be the last of the fully human Lords Monboddo. The idea would flatter my very considerable vanity, were it not for the great improvement people will see in government business when the change takes place. Everything will suddenly go much faster.
Yes, today human government stands at a very delicate point of balance. But before opening the path ahead I must describe the steps which brought us here.
“So stand with me on the sun some six thousand years ago and consider, with sharper