Gay City and Other Stories, Alan Keslian [early readers txt] 📗

devoted to looking after him alone would have been enough to staff an entire hospital. I was told that treatments begun in the president's personal facility were transferred to the state medical research centre, where after further work they were made available to anyone who could afford them. The research undertaken to keep him alive was therefore not for his sole benefit, it was for the well being of the whole state, and brought in desperately needed foreign currency in fees earned abroad.
If the palace's medical suite was big, the state medical research centre was vast. Rostan took me through so many treatment rooms, operating theatres and laboratories that I lost count. I was shown new organs being grown from small groups of cells, destined to be surgically implanted. Microscopic tools were being made which when injected would scrape off the deposits from inside constricted blood vessels. In an isolation unit special viruses were being designed which would destroy other types of disease-causing virus and bacteria. On the middle platform of a tall unit housing a massive electron microscope we were able to speak without being overheard. 'The massive electro-magnetic fields right here, where we are now standing mean we can be fairly sure to escape surveillance devices. What do you think of it all?'
'I'm impressed. I can only make comparisons with Gay City's own research facilities, but for medical research this must be among the best on the planet, if not the best.'
Rostan undid the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled back his collar. Inside, written neatly and clearly in black ink, was the name of the gay newspaper I had been told of: 'Otherwise...'. He said: 'In high technology medicine we do lead in some major fields, but the vast majority of people cannot afford these treatments, they are available only to a privileged few. Public health also receives scant resources. Whilst the wealthy elite are living longer and longer, overall the population is in decline.'
'Is that the sort of thing you publish in your newsletter?'
His gentle smile made a pang of remembrance and regret surge through me. He answered calmly: 'No, not at all. The newsletter is described as underground because it does not come from one of the official publishing houses. Generally the contents are not controversial, more about where to go for fun, shopping or whatever, very chatty. I just want to make sure you don't get the impression that everything here is wonderful.'
'Is there a chance of my seeing anything of the city?'
'They won't let you go anywhere outside the approved areas. These are the palace, the airport, this research centre and, specially approved for you, the generating station. It would be a waste of time even to ask permission to go elsewhere. We might be able to look at a few public areas on the surveillance monitors though.'
After the medical research centre, where we had lunch, I was shown the geo-thermal generating station. Developed on the site of a disused mine the station now provides all the electrical energy needs of the state. Through transparent inspection panels I saw boiling water and clouds of steam gushing from a tunnel on their way to drive turbines. This one installation supplied all the power needed by the now shrunken population, but although environmentally sound the technology was outmoded by the standards of more advanced states. Gay City's space station could transmit the same amount of in microwave form to a receiving unit on the ground at a fraction of the cost. Dozens of hetero states are already supplied in this way.
When Rostan took me back into the palace complex I followed him on one of those curious twisty journeys you sometimes experience in old buildings, through some of the grand art deco rooms, down several floors in a lift, along a corridor, through some double doors, and finally into a room with about forty metre-long monitor screens taking up a whole wall. There were only three officers on duty at the time, and none looked up from what they were doing as we walked in. I recognised several landmarks, but most of the screens seemed to be showing fairly nondescript streets. 'Not many people about,' I observed.
'We could look at Republic Square, that's always busy.' Rostan went over to one of the control desks, the top of which showed a map of the city, and he touched some red arrows marking the location of several cameras. As he did so the screens nearest us immediately changed to display pictures of the square, and Rostan showed me how to adjust the direction and field of view so that I could zoom in on anything which caught my eye. Republic Square was dilapidated, the paintwork peeling from the main buildings and half the windows boarded up. Beggars hung around the fountain in the centre. Hundreds of people in small groups meandered around, oddly aimless and dejected. A queue ran from the door of the civic hall to a corner of the square and on out of sight down a side street.
'What's are they queuing for?' I asked.
'Travel documents. People queue for days to get them.' Next he showed me views of the main shopping areas, but the story was much the same, none of the life or vigour of the city which I remembered, just more crumbling buildings, dejected people, queues and beggars. In a second shopping area some old battered cars juddered along, a few people shuffled over littered pavements and children scavenged for food among piles of rubbish.
One of the guards came over. 'Do you have authorisation to be in here?'
Rostan produced his identity card and said: 'I am accompanying a diplomat who is to see the president in person this evening. Of course if special permission is needed, I can obtain it from the president's secretariat.' The bluff worked, and the guard returned to his desk to watch another block of security screens.
Rostan switched over to cameras on a long jetty stretching out into the sea. I recognised it as the disused oil and gas jetty, from the days when the state used to import fuel. He said: 'It might prove a suitable embarkation point if a large number of gay people needed to leave, if there were an invasion, or a return to persecutions. There are no real sea defences nowadays, not so far as I know. '
'Let's hope it won't come to that.'
My final engagement was my first ever meeting with my great uncle. I was due to see him for about an hour, and readily accepted the suggestion that I should freshen up. Rostan took me back to the room where I had first met him and showed me the adjoining private bathroom. I decided I had time to use the electro-mist shower, a recent development equipped with special nozzles that quickly fill the cubicle with a mist of very fine droplets of fluid. The controls look complicated, but I find that if they are all set about half way at the start only small adjustments, if any at all, are needed later. Each droplet of fluid carries a minute electrical charge, much too small to cause a shock, and at first as the mist envelops you all you notice is that your hairs stand on end. Then magnetic fields swirl the mist around you, increasing the collision of the minute droplets with your skin. Your whole skin surface begins to tingle delightfully. Metal studs on the floor prevent any cumulative build up of static, sometimes causing the soles of your feet to tickle or making them itchy; if this happens you scratch your feet on the studs or adjust the shower controls downwards. Jets of ordinary hot water can be turned on when you have had enough of the tingling sensation of want to finish off with an ordinary shower.
When I stepped out from the invigorating pleasures of the shower, Rostan was at my side holding a warm towel. 'How was it?' he asked as he began to pat me dry, gently brushing himself against me.
Gay City's manual for official visits gives very clear instructions on sex. It advises that in most of the hetero states gay sex is totally or partially against the law, and that in some it is punishable by death. 'Total abstention from sexual activities with others is therefore the only course which does not involve risk. If there is a need for occasional relief, use of the small adaptor supplied with the personal communication unit is recommended.' I have tried the adaptor; you position it not against any erogenous zone but at the back of your head and switch on. You experience spasms of intense sexual pleasure, but it is somehow difficult to equate these with any sexual act because you cannot locate exactly where in the body the stimulation is taking place, until at last orgasm brings the promised 'relief.' The adaptors are supplied only for longer trips than my single day's visit.
Rostan proceeded to help dry me in a way which clearly showed he was not following Gay City's instructions on official visits and sex. I did not resist. He was so much the lover I had lost all those years ago, brought back to life. We made love like strangers though, unable to anticipate each other's movements, or the familiar reassurance of long term partner's caresses.
My mood after detumescence, calmer and a little pre-occupied, probably made the eventual meeting with my great uncle less difficult. No formal ritual or elaborate courtesies preceded our discussions. I was ushered into the receiving room by Rostan, who quickly said goodbye and left.
My first impression was of a fairly old man dressed in an oddly designed suit of very heavy cloth. 'How did you find your attendant?' asked a deep disembodied voice coming from somewhere behind his chair, or rather throne. Things must have improved since he was seen some years ago in the tank.
'He was most helpful, excellent company.'
'I am glad you had some time together. He seemed familiar to you?' He was like a ventriloquist, his lips showing an odd trembling movement rather than shaping the sounds when he spoke.
'He is a related to my ex-lover, who was killed.'
'Yes, he believes himself to be related. That is what he has always been told. The truth is that he is a clone, a fact which I and very few others know.' The blotched worn face showed a trace of a smile. His strange eyes, somehow too round and too bright, watched intensely as his words worked their effect on me. Was my lover somehow alive again in the form of Rostan? Clone or relative, to Rostan I was just a stranger he would probably never meet again. I was struggling to find words: 'A clone?'
'Yes, during the persecution of gays, clones of many of those who died were produced. It was part of a research project. Small changes were made to the genes of the parent cells to see if sexual preference would be affected.' After a pause he continued: 'I regret all of that, all that happened. I was badly and deceitfully advised; dreadful things were done and you yourself were forced into exile. I am sorry for what you suffered. I was anxious to show you how much things have changed here.'
He stopped, waiting for me to respond. After the death and ruin of so many, did he really think a simple apology was all that was needed? I said sharply: 'The pasts is the past. I am glad the persecution has ended.'
'A great deal has changed here, as I hope Rostan has proved. Think also of what we have to offer. The medical treatments which have been developed here are far beyond anything which has been achieved elsewhere, even in