Brave New Worlds

kept tugging at his pigtail. He'd been a trader in books, and he talked books and politics and thought he was Lou's lieutenant. Lou wasn't saying. And Bill the Brylcreem, and Charlie with his still, and Tom. The Boys. Hating each other, with no one else to talk to, waiting for the day when the Grils would burn us, or the food in the cart would have an added secret ingredient. When they were done with us.
    Royce talked, learning who the cameras were.
    There were only four Grils, dividing the day into two shifts. Royce gave them names. There was Alice and Hortensia, and Miss Scarlett who turned out to be from Atlanta. Only one of the Grils took a while to find a name, and she got it the first day one of the cameras laughed.
    She'd been called Greta, I think because she had such a low, deep voice. Sometimes Royce called her Sir. Then one morning, Lou was late, and as he came, Royce said. "Uh-oh. Here comes the Rear Admiral. "
    Lou was very sanctimonious about always taking what he assumed was the female role in sex. The cameras knew that; they watched all the time. The camera laughed. It was a terrible laugh; a thin, high, wailing, helpless shriek.
    "Hey, Sir, that's really Butch," said Royce, and the name Butch stuck.
    So did Rear Admiral. God bless all who sail in him.
    "Hiya, Admiral," gasped the camera, and even some of the Boys laughed too.
    Lou looked confused, a stiff and awkward smile on his face. "It's better than being some macho prick," he said.
    That night, he took me to one side, by the showers.
    "Look," he said. "I think maybe you should get your friend to ease up a bit. "
    "Oh Lou, come on, it's just jokes. "
    "You think all of this is a joke!" yelped Lou.
    "No. "
    "Don't think I don't understand what's going on. " the light caught in his eyes, pinprick bright.
    "What do you think is going on, Lou?"
    I saw him appraising me. I saw him give me the benefit of the doubt. "What you've done, Rich, and maybe it isn't your fault, is to import an ideological wild card into this station. "
    "Oh Lou," I groaned. I groaned for him, for his mind.
    "He's not with us. I don't know what these games are that he's playing with the women, but he's putting us all in danger. Yeah, sure, they're laughing now, but sooner or later he'll say the wrong thing, and some of us will get burned. Cooked. And another thing. These little heart to heart talks you have with each other. Very nice. But that's just the sort of thing the Station cannot tolerate. We are a team, we are a family, we've broken with all of that nuclear family shit, and you guys have re-imported it. You're breaking us up, into little compartments. You, Royce, James, even Harry, you're all going off into little corners away from the rest of us. We have got to work together. Now I want to see you guys with the rest of us. No more withdrawing. "
    "Lou," I said, helpless to reply. "Lou. Fuck off. "
    His eyes had the light again. "Careful, Rich. "
    "Lou. We are with you guys twenty-two hours a day. Can you really not do without us for the other two? What is wrong with a little privacy, Lou?"
    "There is no privacy here," he said. "The cameras pick up just about every word. Now look. I took on a responsibility. I took on the responsibility of getting all of us through this together, show that there is a place in the revolution for good gay men. I have to know what is going on in the Station. I don't know what you guys are saying to each other up there, I don't know what the cameras are hearing. Now you lied to me, Rich. You didn't know Royce before he came here, did you. We don't know who he is, what he is. Rich, is Royce even gay?"
    "Yes! Of course!"
    "Then how does he fuck?"
    "That's none of your business. "
    "Everything here is my business. You don't fuck him, he doesn't fuck you, so what goes on?"
    I was too horrified to speak.
    "Look," said Lou, relenting. "I can understand it. You love the guy. You think I don't feel that pull, too, that pull to save them? We wouldn't be gay if we didn't. So you see him on the platform, and he is very nice, and you think, Dear God, why does he have to die?"
    "Yes. "
    "I feel it! I feel it too!" Lou made a good show of doing so. "It's not the people themselves, but what they are that we have to hold onto. Remember, Rich, this is just a program of containment. What we get here are the worst, Rich, the very worst—the sex criminals, the transsexuals, the media freaks. So what you have to ask yourself, Rich, is this: what was Royce