Earth Unaware (UC), page 15
He stopped at one desk long enough to say, "What are you doing?"
The young man looked up. 'Incantations," he said. He had a pile of books, pamphlets and manuscripts before him and a mike connected to a dicto in his left hand.
"Incantations?" Ed said.
The other had gone back to his perusal, now he looked up again. He obviously didn't recognize Ed as his chief. For that matter, Ed didn't recognize him. He had never seen him before.
The other said, "Incantations. The chanting or uttering of words purporting to have magical powers. I'm accumulating basic data."
"You mean we've got a full time man working on nothing but finding out about incantations?"
The young man looked at him pityingly. "I'm translating incantations in Serbo-Croat. They've got fifty-odd others on other languages. Now, if you'll please excuse me." He went back to his books.
Ed Wonder went into his own office.
There had been a few matters which had come up that Randy Everett informed him about. The extent of the offices allotted to Project Tubber had been upped considerably during the night, as well as the number of personnel. They were now working on a three shift basis. Ed hadn't known about that.
Mr. De Kemp hadn't come in yet but had called to let them know he was feeling indisposed.
At that point in Miss Everett's report, Ed snarled, "Indisposed! Call that bum and tell him to get in here, hangover or no hangover. Tell him I'll send a squad of marines, if he doesn't."
Randy said, "Yes, sir."
Ed said, "Put Major Davis On."
The face that faded into the phone screen had a major's leaves on the shirt collar, but it wasn't the face of Major Davis.
Ed "Wonder said, "Where's Lenny Davis?"
"Davis isn't with us any more, sir. He had a breakdown of some sort or other. My name is Wells."
"Oh, he did, huh? Well, look here Wells, no more breakdowns among you army types, understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"If there are any breakdowns around here, I'll have them."
"Yes, sir."
Ed tried to remember why he had called Major Davis, and couldn't. He flicked off the screen. It lit up again immediately to display the face of Colonel Fredric Williams.
The colonel said, "Dwight Hopkins wants to see you immediately, Wonder."
"Okay," Ed said. He got to his feet. He wished that Buzzo were here to back him. There were angles to this big executive bit.
At the entry to Project Tubber, Johnson and Stevens, the two security heavies, fell in behind him. Evidently, he was still under guard. It was just as well. He couldn't have found his way to the Hopkins offices otherwise. He had the vague feeling that this whole commission, or whatever its official name was, had grown by half again during the night. The crush was greater in the corridors, still more equipment was being shoved up and down the halls, and more offices were being filled with desks, files, phones, intercoms and all the other paraphernalia of bureaucracy.
He was admitted immediately to Dwight Hopkins' presence and found the president's right hand man winding up a conference with fifteen or twenty assorted efficient-looking types, only several of whom were in uniform. Ed wasn't introduced and the others filed out with the exception of
rofessor Braithgale, the one among them all that Ed Wonder had recognized.
Hopkins said, "Sit down, Mr. Wonder. How does Project Tubber go?"
Ed held up his hands, palms upward. "How could it go? We just got started yesterday afternoon. We're investigating the nature of a curse. Or at least trying to. We're trying also to get as complete rundown on Tubber as we can, on the off chance that we'll find some clue as to how he got this power of his."
Hopkins shifted slightly in his chair, as though what he was about to say didn't appeal to him. He said, "Your hypothesis, the Tubber hypothesis, is strengthening in its appeal, Mr. Wonder. It occurs to me that one aspect of this crisis might be unknown to you. Did you know that radar was not effected?"
"I wondered about that," Ed told him.
"But that isn't what has our technicians rapidly going off their minds. Neither is radio as used in international commerce, shipping, that sort of thing. But above all, neither are educational motion pictures. I spent an hour last night, on the edge of insanity, watching the current cinema idol, Warren Waren, come through perfectly in a travelogue sort of documentary used to. promote the teaching of geography in our high schools. He had donated his time. But when we attempted to project one of his regular films. The Queen and I, using what our research people assured me was identical type film and using the same projector, we got that fantastic holdover of the image on the screen."
Dwight Hopkins' gaze was steady, but there was somehow, behind his eyes, a frantic look.
Ed said, "TV, in the way we use it in telephones, isn't effected either. The curse is selective, just as in books. Non-fiction isn't effected, nor even the kind of fiction Tubber likes. What the devil, not even his favorite comic strip is changed. But none of this is news, why'd you bring it up?"
Professor Braithgale spoke up for the first time. "Mr. Wonder, it was one thing considering your hypothesis along with anything, absolutely anything, else. But we are rapidly arriving to the point where your theory is the only one that makes sense. The least sensible of all comes nearest to making sense."
"What happened to sun spots?" Ed srud.
Hopkins said, "On the face of it, such activity might disrupt radio, but it would hardly be selective. At the remotest, it wouldn't exercise censorship over our lighter fiction."
"So you're beginning to suspect that I'm not as kooky as you first thought."
The bureaucrat ignored that. He said, "The reason we brought you in, Mr. Wonder, is that we wish to consult you on a new suggestion. It has been proposed that we use telephone lines to pipe TV programs into the homes. A crash program would be started immediately. Within a month or so every home in the United Welfare States of America would have its entertainment again."
Ed Wonder stood up and leaned on Dwight Hopkins' desk and looked down into the older man's face. "You know the answer to that silly idea as well as I do. How would you like to upset the economy of this country by fouling up telephone and telegraph, to go along with TV and radio?"
Hopkins stared at him.
Ed Wonder stared back.
Braithgale coughed. "That's what we were afraid of. Then you think…"
"Yes, I do. Tubber would lay a hex on your new wired TV as soon as it started up."
It seemed a stronger Edward Wonder than they had spoken to only the day before. Dwight Hopkins looked at him calcu-latingly. He said, finally, "Professor, suppose you tell Mr. Wonder the latest developments pertaining to the crisis."
Ed returned to his chair and sat down.
The tall gray professor's voice took on its lecture tone. "Soap box orators," he said.
"What in the devil is a soap box orator?" Ed demanded.
"Possibly a bit before your time. They were already on their way out when radio began nationwide hookups and the programs began to offer consistent entertainment to the masses. We still had a remnant of the soap box orators in the 1930s but short of a few exceptions such as Boston Common and Hyde Park in London, they disappeared by the middle of this century. They are open air speakers who talk to their audiences from improvised stands. In the old days, when large numbers of our people strolled the streets of a pleasant spring or summer evening, these speakers were able to attract and hold their audiences."
"Well, what did they talk about?" Ed scowled.
"Anything and everything. Some were religious cranks. Some had things to sell such as patent medicine. Some were radicals, Socialists, Communists, I.W.W.S, that sort of thing. This was their opportunity to reach the people with whatever their message might be."
Ed said, "Well, so what? Let them talk. It'll give the people something to do, especially until you get the circuses, carnivals and vaudeville going again."
Braithgale said, "Don't lay too much store by live entertainment, Wonder. Only a limited number of persons can watch a live performance. Vaudeville becomes meaningless if you are too far from the stage, so does legitimate theatre or a circus. Perhaps it was that which bankrupted Rome. They had to build ever more arenas so that their whole population could crowd into them. They simply couldn't keep that many shows going."
"But what's wrong with these soap box orators?"
Br?ithgale said, "Mr. Wonder, with the coming of cinema, radio, and finally, capping it all, television, the voice of dissent faded from the land. Minority parties and other malcontents could not afford the high costs of utilizing these media themselves. They were thrown back on distributing leaflets, pamphlets and little magazines or weekly newspapers. And, of course, we know how few people actually read anything necessitating concentrated thought. Even those of us who do read are presented daily with so much material that we are highly selective. In pure self-defense, we must look at the title or headline of the reading material offered us, and make a quick decision. Few in the minority groups have the skills or the resources to present their material in the attractive manner in which the more oppulent publishers do. It boils down to the fact that the beliefs of the dissenters against our affluent society have not been reaching the people."
It was beginning to get through to Ed Wonder.
Hopkins finished the story. "But now, every night, there are tens of thousands of belligerent amateur orators standing on our street corners, harranging people with nothing else to do but listen, people desperate for something to do."
"You mean these, ah, soap box orators are organized? They've got some kind of definite bug that…"
Hopkins held up a thin hand. "No. No, not yet. But that is
just a matter of time. Sooner or later one of them will come up with an idea that appeals to the mob. He'll attract followers, other street corner harrangers. The condition of the country being the way it is now, almost any really popular idea would sweep in like wildfire. A new religion. More likely a new political theory, however far right or left."
"Oh," Ed said. He could understand the workings of politician Dwight Hopkins' mind now. The administration had definite irons in the fire. Tubber's efforts might threaten the political climate. However, Ed still didn't see where he came in.
They weren't long in enlightening him.
Hopkins said, "Mr. Wonder, time is running out on us. We must have some action. It will be necessary to contact this Ezekiel Joshua Tubber."
"I think it's a good idea. Go ahead. Maybe you can appeal to his patriotism, or something. No, come to think of it, patriotism is out. He thinks the country is being run by a bunch of idiots. He's against the welfare state."
"Little Ed," Hopkins said smoothly, "I am afraid that it is going to have to be you who sees Tubber. I can think of no one else to whom we can entrust the assignment."
"Oh, no you don't. Listen, why not send a few of the F.B.I. boys? Or maybe the C.I.A. They're used to trouble. I hate it."
Hopkins was at his most persuasive. "If Tubber is at the root of our troubles, sending police officers of any description could well prove disastrous. If he is not, then it could only make us look foolish. No, you are the one. He knows you, his daughter is evidently attracted to you."
"But you need me to handle my department, Project Tubber," Ed said desperately.
"Mr. De Kemp can handle matters until your return."
"I'm expendable, huh?" Ed said bitterly.
"If you must put it in that manner, yes," Hopkins told him.
"Well, you're just going to have to get another patsy. I'm afraid to get within miles of that old kook," Ed Wonder told them definitely.
They had given him a highly detailed map of the Catskill area in which was located Elysium. It wasn't too far from the Ashokan reservoir, nor from the once artist colony of Woodstock.
Ed passed through that town, on to Bearsville and beyond to a hamlet called Shady. From there a dirt side road led off some miles to the community of Elysium. There were a couple of signs along the way. Ed Wonder had never had the little Volkshover over a dirt road before. However, beyond churning up quite a screen of dust left behind, there seemed no special effect.
He passed a small cottage, laid back from the road. Perhaps cabin would be the better term. There was an extensive garden of both flowers and vegetables around it. Ed Wonder drove on, passing another, somewhat similar abode, though not an exact duplicate. In the back of his mind he identified the places as summer houses; someone who wanted to get away from it all, get back to nature during the warm months. The idea didn't exactly appeal to him, although, come to think of it, there were desirable aspects to this sort of…
Then it came to him as another cottage appeared to the left.
This was Elysium.
There were little side roads going off in this direction and that. Obviously, to other habitations.
His face twisted. People lived here all year around? Stuck off here away from, well, from civilization?
It came to him that there were neither TV nor radio antennas. Nor, for that matter, telephone wires. It came to him, as a shock, that there couldn't under the circumstances be any community distribution center. These people must actually cook their own food.
He let the Volkshover settle to the ground so that he could consider other aspects. Three of the cottages were in view now. And there wasn't a hovercar in sight, aside from his own.
"You'd go batty," he muttered.
There were some youngsters in a grove off a way, playing in the trees. They were scampering around the branches like a tribe of monkeys. Ed Wonder's first response was to wonder why their parents were allowing them to risk their necks so obviously. Say what you wanted to against TV but at least it kept the kids off the streets and out of dangerous play. A kid could get himself in some risky situations if allowed to horse around as these were. Then something else came to him. Perhaps children should be exposed to a certain degree of
danger in their play. Perhaps a broken arm or so, while going through the process of growing up, came under the head of education and had value in the way of experience.
He was going to go over to the youngsters to ask directions, but then, in the distance, saw someone he recognized. He dropped the lift lever and at slow speed proceeded in her direction. It was one of Tubber's followers. One of the women who had acted as receptionist at the tent entrance there in Kingsburg, the first night Ed and Helen had come afoul of Ezekiel Joshua Tubber.
Ed pulled up aside her and said, "Ah… loved one…"
She stopped and frowned, evidently surprised to see a hovercar on the streets—if they could be called streets—of Elysium. She obviously didn't recognize him. She said hesitantly, "Good afternoon, loved one. Could I be of assistance?"
Ed climbed out of the beetle and said, "You don't remember me. I've attended a couple of the meetings of, ah, the Speaker of the Word." He should have planned this out better. The fact of the matter was, he hadn't a clue to what he was going to find here and was playing it by ear.
He said, "I thought I'd come and see Elysium."
Her face lost stiffness. "You are a pilgrim?"
"Well, maybe not exactly. I'd just like to know more about it." He fell in beside her, leaving the car where it was. Parking was no problem in Elysium. "I'm not keeping you from anything, am I?"
"Oh, no." She continued to walk along. "I'm only delivering some of my things to the printer."
"Printer?"
"That building there. It's our print shop."
Ed Wonder looked at that building there, which they were approaching. It looked little different from the cottages. "You mean you print__"
"Just about everything." She didn't look quite as grim as he'd remembered her at the tent meeting in Kingsburg. Come to think of it, Ed decided, he had expected her to look grim at the tent meeting. A dedicated Holy Roller, or something, all set to froth at the mouth against dancing, drink, card playing and similar sins.
He said, even as they approached the door. "You mean books?" Ed Wonder's conception of the printing of books involved acres of Rube Goldberg printing presses, entirely
automated, with huge rolls of paper unwinding at flashing speed at one end and finished volumes flowing out, to be wrapped and boxed, again automatically, at the other. All at the rate of thousands per hour, if not per minute. This whole building couldn't have been more than thirty by forty feet, at most.
He followed her through the door.
"Books, pamphlets, even a little weekly newspaper we send out to pilgrims throughout the nation who are not yet quite ready to join us in Elysium." She greeted one of the two men who occupied the print shop. "Kelly, I've finally got the last two verses."
Kelly had been standing before what Ed vaguely recognized to be a primitive type of printing press. With his left leg he was stomping up and down on a treadle, somewhat similar to the powering of the early sewing machine. At the same time he was picking up sheets of paper with his right hand, inserting them deftly into the moving press, removing them just as deftly with his left hand, repeating the process over and over again.
Kelly said, "Hi, Martha. Good. Norm can set them up."
Ed was watching in fascination. If the other got his hand caught between that type and__
Kelly grinned at him. "Never saw a platen press before?"
"Well, no," Ed said.
Martha said, "Kelly, this is a new pilgrim. He's been to some of Josh's meetings."
They exchanged banalities. For a time, Ed watched in complete astonishment. He realized he couldn't have been more surprised if he had come into a room where women were carding wool and then utilizing spinning wheels to make thread. Had he known it, that was going to come later.
While Martha and Kelly got into some technical discussion about the book they were evidently in the process of producing, Ed wandered over to where the room's other occupant was working.
This worthy looked up and grinned a welcome. "Name's Haer, loved one," he said. "Norm Haer."
"Ed," Ed told him. "Ed Wonder. What in the devil are you doing?"
