A Princess of The Linear Jungle

1.
    GRADUATION TRIP

    BEATING SLOWLY UP RIVER AT A MERE TWO KNOTS, OR EIGHT Blocks per hour, mainly under sails bellying with a warm, maritime-perfumed wind, yet also employing two small supplemental engines, these impellers being the latest invention of Roger Kynard & Progeny, Ingeniators, running on a few hundred watts of beamed power from the Day sun, the Samuel Smallhorne , far from its home Slip of number 42 in the Borough of Stagwitz (Blocks 33,011,576 through 33,011,676 of the Linear City), pulled abreast of the Down town border of the legendary Jungle Blocks of Vayavirunga at approximately ten AM on May the twelfth.
    All the passengers, a mere five travelers, raced to the Broadway-facing side of the mid-sized sturdy ketch, clustering at the bow near its figurehead, a bare-breasted representation of the heroine of Diego Patchen’s novel Arianna of the Skystreets (two-hundred-years old that tale, and a beloved classic), there to hang upon the taffrail of the momentarily imbalanced, listing ship and to marvel, with wordless exclamations like those from flustered pigeons, at the sight of the chromatically brilliant and overripe vegetation hoisting itself sky ward upon the mostly concealed armatures of ruined buildings, like a snapshot of frenzied River crawdaddies struggling to escape a pot of boiling water, each climbing atop another.
    The cloudless, azure skies above the enigmatic expanse of Vayavirunga seemed to contain fewer Pompatics than anywhere else in the City, as if a postulated and likely sparse human population in that wilderness required fewer shepherds of the dead. Those filmy Fisherwives and marmoreal Yard bulls that could be seen aloft appeared bored and listless at their lack of employment, if such human emotions could plausibly be attributed to those numinous, incommunicative beings.
    The lazy ketch, favored method for multi-Borough travel among those with enough time who sought to avoid the cindery trains or cloistered Subway, sauntered UpRiver at its contemplation-favoring, unvarying pace. (The Samuel Smallhorne took approximately twelve hours to traverse the one hundred blocks of any given Borough. But, lacking full facilites for dining or ablutions, the ship put into Slips regularly, and docked firmly for each night, cautious Captain Canebrake wary of sharing dark waters with the big freighters.)
    Merritt Abraham studied the jungle scene with bright-eyed intensity; excitement, awe and reverent fear filled her veins in equal measure. This was surely the most exotic sight she had ever witnessed in her twenty-two years. How marvelous this trip was proving to be! How right she had been, some months back, to apply for her first real job, contingent upon graduation, so far from her home in Stagwitz. And how lucky she had been to receive, just after commencement two weeks ago, the acceptance letter for that desirable position.
    The lush riot of foliage and flower, creeper and vine, rising where normally only a segment of the endless human habitations of the Linear City would appear, reminded Merritt of the paintings of Rosalba Lucerne, the primitivist artist on whom she had written one of her best papers while attending Jermyn Rogers College in Stagwitz, and she felt compelled to share this esthetic insight with her fellows.
    “Doesn’t that whole panorama look just like the imaginary jungle in Lucerne’s ‘The Sleeping Trackman ?’”
    Merritt’s rhetorical exclamation produced a variety of reactions in her companions.
    To her immediate left stood Balsam Troutwine, a sleek, middle-aged but still trim and attractive fellow who, in as pure a case of nominative determinism as Merritt had ever encountered, performed as a liquor distributor across a territory of two dozen Boroughs centered around Merritt’s new home, the Borough of Wharton. Next to him leaned Dan Peart, a professional cyclist who had just won the Leyden frost Memorial KiloBlock Heat, and whose leg muscles, displayed perennially in varicolored silk shorts, resembled anatomical models of perfection, steel simulacra covered in vellum.
    On Merritt’s other side were to be found Cady Rachis, a glamorous, statuesque, dark-haired and dark-eyed woman some dozen years older than Merritt. Cady’s worldliness and fashion sense—she was a nightclub singer of some renown—made Merritt feel awkward and foolish. Cady’s looks always urged Merritt to smooth down her usual floral blouse or tunic over her generous hips in their standard