CHAPTER 3
An open end and backstage had been erected in the park, actually just a platform. Fifteen hundred seats had been erected in tiers at one side, but open space near them permitted thousands more to stand. Three huge military bands-Army, Fleet and Palace Qty-assembled on short notice, stood before and to either side of the platform. Just now, the center one-Fleet-of more than a hundred pieces, was playing "Spaceward Ho!" The floodlights sparkled on their instruments: the flash of the conductor's electric gloves pulsed in cadence as he directed them. Then there was a long note and to its strident call, Hightee Heller marched upon the stage and the piece continued. A spotlight hit her as she marched. She wore a very daring version of an Army uniform but on her head, cocked to the side, was the dress cap of a Fleet officer. She was carrying the electric dagger of a Fleet marine. She marched once across the stage and then made an imperious gesture. She turned and, as she marched back, up the left side steps behind her came a chorus in Army uniforms. At that moment the music changed to an Army battle song-the Army band was playing. They paraded all the way across the stage and High-tee stopped again. She turned and up the right side steps behind her marched a chorus dressed as Fleet marines. The Palace City band joined in playing the marine battle charge. Hightee marched to center stage and faced audience front. The Fleet band bepn to play "Spaceward Ho!" again. Hightee walked forward and up the steps behind her came a chorus dressed as spacers of the Fleet. The only backdrop was the stars. The lights on High-tee and the three choruses were flashing in a marching beat. Homeview cameras flickered. The show was being carried to the packed streets and meeting places and the homes of the Confederacy. Aside from. the interest of the moment, who would not watch and listen to Hightee Heller? The routines being done by the choruses so hastily flown in from Homeview studios in Joy City were very standard routines they all knew well. But Heller was amazed she had been able to assemble it so fast. A swell of pride in his sister rose up in him: so very, very much depended on her success with this. He wondered if she had managed the near impossible and gotten the song written and fitted to music and practiced. He found he was holding his own breath. Then suddenly all three choruses fanned into a solid line behind her, facing front, and began to mark time in place. Hightee threw a switch on her electric dagger, putting it to full intensity, and lunged. Abruptly all three bands played a long and ominous note. The dagger swept down, spitting sparks. And then three bands began to play, conducted by swirls of fire from the dagger, a savage piece of music. They played through the whole tune once, Hightee conducting. Then a scarlet, pulsing spotlight hit her, and she began to sing with that searing, surging music: We'll end off our invasion From the culture of contagion And blow the offending planet from the sky! You'll find our guns quite warm, But you've no time to reform, Or even to request the reason why! Your psychology bends wills, Your psychiatry just kills, Your drugs that cause convulsions All must die! You should have taken warning In your very day of borning, When you saw yourself begin to putrefy! We'll now use all our exterminant To blast you from the firmament And all your tricks of spying won't apply! We won't meet you later on, For you'll have no other dawn. Earth, you won't be missed!
GOOOOOOD-BYE!
There was a huge cymbal BANG from the band that went along with the last "Bye!" But that didn't finish the song by a long way. In fact, the program was just starting. Suddenly the first line of the song appeared against the stars by electronic projection so all the audience could see them and they could appear on the Homeview screens. With a swirl of the dagger Hightee began to direct the three choruses. They sang and the words, blood-red, appeared in lines against the stars. They sang the whole song through again. They came to the last cymbal bang. Hightee swept the flaming dagger to indicate the Palace Gty audience. She called out her command, "SING IT, EVERYBODY!" She and the choruses began, the words appeared against the sky, line by line. But this time she was directing the audience, cupping her ear, beckoning them to sing, forcing them to sing, demanding that they sing! The song came through to the cymbal clash again. Hightee cried, "Now everybody on Homeview! SING! SING! SING IT!" She and the choruses, the Palace City park audience and now everywhere in the Confederacy, even on delay-she had them singing that song. And they were singing it with a wave of hate! Noble Arthrite Stuffy looked at Heller. "Did you know she was going to do this? She'll drive those crowds insane, straight back into riots!" He didn't get any answer from Heller and turned to look with horror once more at the screens. In here you also got the backfeed from the crowds and mobs and, truly, they were singing the song with a screaming ferocity that made Stuffy's blood run chilled. Even the faces were contorted. Fists were shaking. The mobs were going crazy! The cymbal clash apin. And Hightee cried, "Louder, louder! You're singing about an enemy, not a friend! SING IT!" And she started the song again, words appearing across the sky: We'll end off our invasion… The roar of the voices, increased in volume, from the nearby park swelled into the Grand Council hall. The sound from the monitors themselves began to reach toward hysteria. The final bang of the song. "Oh!" cried Hightee, "you can do better than that! I am here in a park in Palace City, Voltar. I want to hear your voices all the way from Flisten! SING, SING, SING IT!" "Good Gods," said Stuffy, "here come more riots! I can feel it! Can't you stop her?" "Stop my sister Hightee?" said Heller. "Never been able to. Can't start now." We'll end off our invasion From the culture of contagion And blow the offending planet from the sky! You'll find our guns quite warm… And on it went through again. And then again. And then again! Anyone in the whole Confederacy who was anywhere near a Homeview screen was singing that song! It was swelling from the planets in a hymn of hate! Hightee, an expert in judging audience reactions from the stage, was putting the whole Confederacy through it and through it and through it again to obtain the exact effect which she was watching for. She took them up to frothing with that savage music and then took them beyond it. Then, signalling with an electronic clicker held in her other hand, the words ceased to appear in the sky. But everyone knew them by this time and the music and singing continued. Against the stars, a small dot appeared. The choruses put their backs to the audience and began to march in place, but looked like they were marching forward. The whole audience felt they were approaching that small dot for it was getting larger. Bigger and bigger the dot enlarged, until it was a sphere. Then bigger and bigger the sphere became until it was a planet. And there the planet was, right before them, swirling against the night. Heller blinked. Krak must have given them an approach shot from his files. It WAS the planet Earth! The filmy liquidness of it, like a huge blue, white and red bubble, was hanging there spinning, but too slowly to be detected. The shot had been taken from the sun side: Europe and North America were both reddishly visible on either side of the cloud-strewn ocean. The yellowish moon was even there, peeping from behind the equator. Although the picture strip had been taken from thousands of miles up, the three-dimensional illusion now appeared to hang just beyond and above the stage. Seeing it made him feel a bit bitter. It was such a nice planet: too bad they had made so little use of the heritage Prince Caucalsia had given them-that made so many things similar culturally between Voltar and Earth. Too bad they valued it so little. It was a shame they had been so corrupted by their own primitives they had permitted themselves to go so far astray. The clutter of isms and hates could all be solved if they just realized that only a handful of men were using them for personal exploitation: their political creeds were just nonsense and lies manufactured for the benefit of the few, while pretending that they answered the demands of the many. And the way that culture was fixated on material possessions as a single concentration excluded it from attainment of the real and valuable things in life. A can of soup was equated on their communication lines-measured by volume of minutes-far, far more important than a man's soul. Well, there it was, huge against the stars. Hightee gave a signal. The music changed to the martial clamor of attack. She cried, "Each one of you at your seat will find
a pistol. GET THEM IN YOUR HANDS!" There was an instant scramble in the tiers of seats. Yes, pistols were hanging there. They were of the type that makes only flash and noise. Hightee drew one from her own belt. The choruses also drew. She pointed at the electronic illusion of the planet. The choruses also pointed. She yelled, "START SHOOTING!" In a blaze of fire the choruses and audience began the barrage! The music rose in volume. The shots began to hammer in cadence! The target was the Earth against the stars! The music again rose in volume. Unseen before but suddenly illuminated, a circular row of tanks appeared. They began to fire with their main turret guns, pounding at the planet with smoke and flame. Then at a sweeping signal, an outer ring of cannon suddenly sprang into view, manned by actual gunners. They began to belch huge salvos at the target. The music rose in fury. Hightee gave another signal. By optical illusion, a vast Voltar Fleet appeared all around the planet in the sky. They added a new thunder of guns to the deafening din. Under the impact of this pounding, ABRUPTLY, WITH A DREADFUL BANG, THE PLANET BLEW TO BITS! There was a sound like a dying scream. There was a guttering rumble. Something small and charred seemed to fall upon the stage. It lay there sizzling: a small, dead, shrivelled, smoking thing. The music suddenly shifted to a dirge. The dirge was slow and it was awful. A blue spotlight hit the sizzling thing. All other lights were gone. Then, bathed in blue and with a solemn pace, thirty priests came forward from the dark. With motions of timeworn solemnity, assisted by black burial servants who tonged the object into an open grave, the priests went through, with dirge choir music, the whole long litany of burial. A scarlet devil suddenly appeared and scooped up what would appear to be a shrivelled, blackened soul. He turned and dumped it into a flaming pit of a Hell. The lights were gone. Hightee was gone. The stage was empty and there was only the moan of the cold desert wind.
Mission: Earth Doomed Planet Page 16
