Earth Unaware

by Mack Reynolds

  “There’s a difference?”

  “We’ll get in touch with you shortly.”

  It wasn’t shortly. It wasn’t until the next morning. Meanwhile their guard system had been perfected and their needs met. They had spent several hours checking with each other, but it was largely a rehashing. Buzz De Kemp on the whole had had a similar experience to that of Ed Wonder. He’d been picked up by two agents and whisked to the New Woolworth Building. They had picked him up as the writer of the articles on Tubber. When he stuck to his guns, his priority rose from ‘C to ‘AA’ and then, when Ed Wonder’s story corroborated his, to crash.

  They came for Ed and Buzz in the morning. Not Oppenheimer and Major Davis. Evidently, they were being dealt with by higher echelons now. It was a colonel with two aides who showed up to escort them to their next interview. Colonel Fredric Williams of Air Force Intelligence.

  Buzz stuck his paperback in his jacket pocket, saying, “Just in case we run into the usual bureaucratic redtape. You know, hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait—I’ll take along something to read.”

  The colonel glared at him. Buzz leered back, scooped up a handful of the stogies he had ordered the night before and jammed them into a jacket breast pocket. “I’ll need fuel, too.”

  They followed the colonel and his aides, and the guards brought up the rear, coats still brushed back so that guns were readily handy. Ed wondered what they thought the potential danger might be, tucked away here on the top floors of Ultra-New York’s tallest skyscraper and surrounded by what seemed to be hundreds of security men.

  Their destination was up still another floor, and this time there were two reception rooms, rather than one. The first was king-size, with a dozen busy desks and as many offices beyond. The second was small and presided over by a single middle-aged, less than matronly looking efficiency machine.

  She said crisply, “Mr. Hopkins is waiting for you, Colonel. The others have arrived.”

  “Thank you, Miss Presley.”

  The colonel himself opened the inner door.

  Whoever the architect who had designed the New Woolworth Building might have been, he had surely realized that the ultimate floor was meant for ultimate authority of one sort or another. This office bore that fact out.

  Ed Wonder had never been in such an establishment in his life. Only Hollywood had prepared him for it. Even then, he looked about in amazement.

  There was but one desk, which seemed to be suspended by one thin rod from the ceiling, rather than being supported on the floor. Behind it obviously sat Mr. Hopkins. The reality of who Mr. Hopkins was came immediately home to both Ed Wonder and Buzz De Kemp, the latter of whom reacted by whistling softly between his teeth.

  Dwight Hopkins, the Great Compromiser. Dwight Hopkins, the power behind the throne. Dwight Hopkins who dominated western politics like a colossus.

  Dwight Hopkins avoided publicity. He had no need of it. However, the right hand man, the one man brain trust, some said the alter ego, of President Everett MacFerson could not remain completely unknown to the knowledgeable citizen. President MacFerson might be, and was, a figurehead, a symbol, a public image whose actual efforts so far as governing the nation was concerned, went little beyond those of the ruling monarch of Great Britain. But while the MacFerson glamour type politicians might possess whatever it is which draws the votes of the populace, there still must be the Dwight Hopkinses behind the scenes. He had survived three administrations, having been handed down from the Democratic Republicans to the Liberal Conservatives and then back again, without change in either their policies—or his. There were seldom issues between the two parties under the Welfare State; it wasn’t considered the thing to attempt to influence the voters by raising issues. You voted for the man you liked best, not for principles.

  Dwight Hopkins sat behind the small desk. To one side of him, in an easy chair, legs crossed, was a major general To the other, a tall, gray civilian. Across from him, in a row, were Jensen Fontaine, Helen Fontaine and Matthew Mulligan.

  Ed shot his eyes around the room again. No mistake. The Tubbers were conspicuously absent.

  Hopkins nodded to the newcomers. “You must be Buzz De Kemp, you look like a newspaperman. And you’re Edward Wonder. Why do they call you Little Ed?” The Hopkins voice was firm but the urgency in it had a strange easygoing quality, as though there wasn’t really any great hurry, now that Hopkins had taken over.

  “I don’t know,” Ed said.

  Mulligan blurted, “See here, Wonder, if all this is your…”

  The major general rumbled, “That will be enough, Mr. Mulligan. Mr. Wonder is in the same position as you are. You’ve been brought here to help us clear up a matter that is of first importance to the nation.”

  “To the world,” the tall gray civilian said mildly.

  Jensen Fontaine said hotly, “I demand to know if those Communists down in Greater Washington think they can pick up citizens of good repute and…”

  Dwight Hopkins was looking at the small town magnate expressionlessly. He interrupted to say, “Mr. Fontaine. In your belief, what is the cause of the disruption of radio and TV and, further, of motion picture projectors?”

  Jensen Fontaine bent a beady eye on the politician and said, leadingly, “My country, may she always be right…”

  Hopkins said easily, “I agree with you, sir. But to answer my question.”

  Fontaine snapped, “I’ll tell you the cause. Soviet Complex sabotage. Subversion of American industry. Underground…”

  “And how would they have accomplished this?”

  “That’s not my job. You birds down in Greater Washington have been infiltrated. Even the Department of Justice. I suspect the C.I.A. could turn up the culprits soon enough if they weren’t honeycombed with Commie agents. Furthermore…”

  Dwight Hopkins said, “You are free to go, Mr. Fontaine. Our thanks for your cooperation.”

  Fontaine was just getting into stride. He raised an arm to wave in emphasis, and it was taken firmly by Colonel Williams. “I’ll show you to the door, sir.”

  Mulligan’s eyes went from Hopkins to the semi-struggling Fontaine. “See here, you can’t treat Mr. Fontaine that way!” he blatted.

  The white Hopkins’ eyebrows went up. “Do your own opinions coincide with his, Mr. Mulligan?”

  Mulligan was the second to be ushered out.

  Dwight Hopkins looked at Helen, Buzz and Ed Wonder. “I have read the reports. You three were the ones I really wished to talk to anyway. I am sorry, Miss Fontaine, if my handling of your father seemed cavalier.”

  “Bounce it,” Helen said, making a moue. “Daddy can use a little cavalier treatment.”

  The president’s right hand man leaned back in his chair and regarded them solemnly.

  He said, “A week ago Friday, TV and radio became inoperative. For several hours the government took no action. It was assumed that the industry would soon discover the cause and remedy it. However, when it became known that the phenomenon was worldwide, an emergency committee was named. The following day, the president released special funds to increase the size of the committee and give it more arbitrary powers. The following day the committee became a commission. And the day after, in secret session, the Congress voted unlimited resources and I was named head of this project and responsible only to the president. General Crew and Professor Braithgale here, are my assistants.”

  Buzz De Kemp was evidently awed not even by such as Dwight Hopkins. He had brought one of his inevitable stogies from his pocket and as he searched for matches, said around it, “You people sure seem to be in a tizzy over moron level entertainment. The major was telling us, last night, it’s as important as a war. And…”

  “A nuclear war, Mr. De Kemp,” Hopkins said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Helen said.

  Dwight Hopkins looked at the tall gray civilian. “Professor Braithgale, will you enlighten us a bit on the ramifications of the situation which confronts us?”

&nbs
p; The professor’s voice was dry and clear, and he lectured, rather than conversed.

  “What happens to a civilization when there is an economy of abundance and no publicly provided entertainment?”

  The trio, Ed, Buzz and Helen, frowned simultaneously at him, but neither tried an answer. It was obviously rhetorical.

  He went on. “The average human being is not capable of self-programming. At least as he is today. He can’t think up tasks to occupy himself. He’s never had to. Man evolved under conditions where the time and energy he had available were programmed for him; he worked, and he worked twelve to eighteen hours a day. All day, every day. Or he starved. What to do with his time was determined for him. What recreation there was, was very seldom; purely traditional games and dances were a vast relief and entertainment. He never got a chance to become bored with them—he got to play them too seldom. That situation lasted for 99.99 percent of the history of the species.”

  Braithgale eyed them, and his voice went drier still “Now it’s true that leisure is essential for creative activity. Until there is a leisure class, a group with time to do something besides subsist, there is very little opportunity for cultural progress. But, leisure doesn’t automatically produce creativity.

  “So the question becomes, what happens to a culture with plenty of everything—except predetermined activity for the noncreative average man? In other words, what happens to this affluent society, this Welfare State of ours, if we take away radio, motion pictures, and especially television—television, the common man’s pacifier.”

  Ed was scowling. “Vaudeville,” he ventured. “The legitimate theatre. Circuses. Carnivals.”

  The professor nodded. “Yes, but I submit that they would provide but a drop in the bucket, even when and if we get them organized and train the needed talent. How much time can people spend that way?”

  Buzz brought his paperback from his jacket pocket and waved it at the other. “There’s reading.”

  Braithgale shook his head. “The average human does not like to read, Mr. De Kemp. It requires that they contribute a great deal of mental activity themselves. They have to visualize the actions from the words, imagine the voice tones, the facial expressions, and so forth. They are not up to such creative labor.”

  The professor seemed to switch subjects. “Do you recall ever having read of the riots which swept Constantinople during Justinian’s reign as a result of a minor squabble over the horse races? Well, several tens of thousands of persons lost their lives.”

  He remained silent for a moment, looking at them, to achieve emphasis. Then, “It is my belief that the thing that eventually destroyed Rome was the growth of an immense leisure class. Rome was no longer a subsistence culture, the colonies supported it. The populace was awarded free food. They had leisure but no self-programming creativity.”

  Braithgale wound it up. “A man wants something to do. But if he hasn’t the ability to invent something to do, what happens when you take away his TV, his radio, his movies?”

  Ed said, “I’ve been reading of the riots in England—and in Chicago, for that matter.”

  The major general rumbled to Hopkins, “We’ve got to bear down some more on those darned journalists. They’re letting too much of that sort of report get through.”

  Dwight Hopkins didn’t answer him. Instead, he tapped a thick sheaf of papers on his desk and spoke to Ed, Buzz and Helen. “Frankly, your account astonishes me and leaves me incredulous. However, you have this in your favor; you corroborate each other. Hadn’t it been for the matter of the cinema, which is utterly inexplainable in terms of atmospheric disturbances, I admit that I would not be inclined to consider your account at all. However… what is the trouble, Mr. De Kemp?”

  They all looked at the rumpled newsman who was, in turn, goggling the pocketbook he held in his hands. “I must’ve picked up the wrong copy,” he said, unbelievingly. “But I couldn’t have.” He looked up at them, as though accusingly. “This thing’s in French.”

  Ed scowled down at it, wondering at the other’s confusion. “That’s not French. It looks like German to me.”

  Helen said, “It’s not German. I studied German a bit. It looks like Russian.”

  Buzz said defensively, “Don’t be kooky. It’s not even in the Cyrillic alphabet. I say it’s French. But it couldn’t be. I was reading it just before I came in here. And the cover illustration is the same and…”

  Professor Braithgale unfolded his lanky form and came to his feet. “Let me see that,” he said drily. “I can read and write in all the Romance languages, German, Swedish and Russian. I don’t know what has come up but…” His sentence drifted off. His usually quiet gray eyes boggled. “It is… it is in Sanscrit, I think.”

  “Let me see that,” Hopkins said crisply. “What’s the controversy?”

  The professor handed him the paperback suspense novel. “Why, it looks like Italian to me. I don’t know the language but…”

  “Holy smokes,” Ed breathed. “He’s done it again. He’s hexed fiction.”

  “What!” the major general rumbled. “Are you utterly insane?”

  “No, look,” Ed was on his feet. “That report you have in front of you. You can still read it, can’t you? I can. I can read these papers I had in my coat pocket. Look at this newspaper.” He was excitedly showing them. “The news you can read. But look here at the comic page. All the writing is jabber. It looks like it’s in German to me, but I don’t read German. He’s hexed fiction.”

  “Sit down,” Dwight Hopkins rasped. Into his desk communicator he said, “Miss Presley. I want you to send in several books, both fiction and nonfiction. I also want an immediate report on why Ezekiel Joshua Tubber and his daughter have not been picked up.”

  “Yes, sir,” Miss Presley’s efficient voice came through clearly. “The Tubbers have not been found, as yet. The operatives who were sent for them report that they have left Saugerties. Evidently, the itinerant preacher was extremely upset due to the fact that his message was not being listened to.”

  Hopkins said crisply, “Is there any hint as to their destination?”

  “One of their followers said they were going to Elysium. There is no such community listed, sir, in any of the sixty-four States. It might be in Common Europe, or…”

  “That will be sufficient, Miss Presley,” Dwight Hopkins said. He flicked off the intercom and looked at Braithgale and then at the major general. The latter rumbled, “What’s the matter?”

  But Braithgale knew what the matter was. He said, slowly, “Elysium. Another word for the Elysian Fields of the Ancient Greeks.”

  “What the blazes are the Elysian Fields?” the general demanded.

  Dwight Hopkins said, “Paradise.” He ran a hand over his chin, as though checking his morning shave. “Our friend Tubber has gone to Heaven.”

  PART THREE

  9

  “Heaven!” Colonel Fredric Williams blurted from the background where he had been keeping his trap shut through all this. “You mean this necromancer is dead?”

  Ed Wonder was shaking his head. “That’s not it. Elysium is some gobblydygook word they use in this new religion of Tubber’s. They talk about being pilgrims on the road to Elysium, that sort of thing. Elysium is, well, sort of like Utopia, except Tubber is against Utopia. He says the idea is reactionary. I forget why. Something about Utopia being perfect, and perfection means stagnation, or…”

  “Wait a minute,” Braithgale said, “you’re giving me a headache.”

  “Talking about Zeke Tubber and his religion would give anybody a headache,” Buzz said. He paused a moment for dramatic emphasis, then said, “I think I know where Tubber and his daughter have gone.”

  Hopkins looked at Buzz, stunned momentarily.

  Buzz said, “He’s at a cooperative colony near Bearsville, in the Catskills. I heard Tubber mention the place in one of his talks. He invited anybody in the audience who was ready for…” Buzz twisted his mouth “…the promised
land, to come to Elysium and join up. It’s evidently in the tradition of Robert Owen’s New Harmony colony, Llano, down in Louisiana, and Josiah Warren’s Village of Equity.”

  Major General Crew rumbled, “What are you talking about, Mister?”

  Professor Braithgale was looking at Buzz with a new respect. He turned his head and said to the army man, “Cooperative colonies. Utopias. There was quite a movement in their favor back in the 19th Century. Most were based on religion, some not. The Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, turned out to be the most successful. They were intelligent enough to adapt when this teaching or that didn’t prove out. The others went under.”

  Ed said, “We might have known they didn’t go very far. Tubber travels in a horse and wagon.”

  “Horesonvagen?” the general rumbled. “What’s that, some new German model?”

  “Horse and wagon, a horse and wagon,” Ed told him. “A wagon pulled by a horse.”

  The army man stared at him in disbelief. “You mean like in Western movies?”

  “Please, Scotty,” Dwight Hopkins said, without looking at him. The general shut up and Hopkins said to Ed Wonder thoughtfully, “You seem to be our best authority on Ezekiel Joshua Tubber.”

  He was interrupted by the arrival of Miss Presley who bore an armload of books. Even the efficient Miss Presley was looking as though something a bit disconcerting had happened, such as Gabriel blowing his horn, or the Atlantic disappearing. She put the books on Hopkins’ desk and said, “Sir, I… I…”

  “I know, Miss Presley. That will be all for now.”

  Dwight Hopkins took the books up and examined them one by one, while the others looked at him. He put the last one down and rubbed his eyes with his forefingers in resignation. “It still looks like Italian to me.”

  The general blurted, “All of them?”

  “No. Not all of them. The nonfiction is still readable. In fact,” he picked up one hard cover volume. “This novel is still in English. Huckleberry Finn.”

  “Huckleberry Finn?” Helen said. “Mark Twain?”