The Star-Spangled Future

by Norman Spinrad

The Four Horsemen… somehow these guys help you get it all out. I mean that feeling that it might be better to release all that tension, get it all over with. Watching the Four Horsemen, you’re able to go with it without doing any harm, let it wash over you and then through you. I suppose they are crazy; they’re all the human craziness in ourselves that we’ve got to keep very careful watch over down here. Letting it all come out watching the Horsemen makes it surer that none of it will come out down here. I guess that’s why a lot of us have taken to wearing those “Do It” buttons off duty. The brass doesn’t mind; they seem to understand that it’s the kind of inside sick joke we need to keep us functioning.

  Now that spiral thing they had started the show with—and the droning—came back on. Zap! I was right back in the screen again, as if the commercial hadn’t happened.

  “We are all in here together…”

  And then a closeup of the lead singer, looking straight at me, as close as Jeremy and somehow more real. A mean-looking guy with something behind his eyes that told me he knew where everything lousy and rotten was at.

  A bass began to thrum behind him and some kind of electronic hum that set my teeth on edge. He began playing his guitar, mean and low-down. And singing in that kind of drop-dead tone of voice that starts brawls in bars:

  “I stabbed my mother and I mugged my paw…”

  A riff of heavy guitar chords echoed the words mockingly as a huge swastika (red-on-black, black-on-red) pulsed like a naked vein on the screen—

  The face of the Horseman, leering—

  “Nailed my sister to the toilet door…”

  Guitar behind the pulsing swastika—

  “Drowned a puppy in a cement machine… Burned a kitten just to hear it scream…”

  On the screen, just a big fire burning in slow-motion, and the voice became a slow, shrill, agonized wail:

  “Oh, God, I’ve got this red-hot fire burning in the marrow of my brain…

  “Oh, yes, I got this fire burning… in the stinking morrow of my brain…

  “Gotta get me a blowtorch… and set some naked flesh on flame…”

  The fire dissolved into the face of a screaming Oriental woman, who ran through a burning village clawing at the napalm on her back.

  “I got this message… boiling in the bubbles of my blood… A man ain’t nothing but a fire burning… in a dirty glob of mud…”

  A film clip of a Nuremberg rally: a revolving swastika of marching men waving torches—

  Then the leader of the Horsemen superimposed over the twisted flaming cross:

  “Don’t you hate me, baby, can’t you feel somethin’ screaming in your mind?

  “Don’t you hate me, baby, feel me drowning you in slime!”

  Just the face of the Horseman howling hate—

  “Oh yes, I’m a monster, mother…”

  A long view of the crowd around the platform, on their feet, waving arms, screaming soundlessly. Then a quick zoom in and a kaleidoscope of faces, eyes feverish, mouths open and howling—

  “Just call me—”

  The face of the Horseman superimposed over the crazed faces of the crowd—

  “Mankind!”

  I looked at Jeremy. He was toying with the key on the chain around his neck. He was sweating. I suddenly realized that I was sweating, too, and that my own key was throbbing in my hand alive…

  T minus 13 minutes… and counting…

  A funny feeling, the captain watching the Four Horsemen here in the Backfish’s missile control center with us. Sitting in front of my console watching the television set with the captain kind of breathing down my neck. I got the feeling he knew what was going through me and I couldn’t know what was going through him… and it gave the fire inside me a kind of greasy feel I didn’t like…

  Then the commercial was over and that spiral-thing came on again and—whoosh!—it sucked me right back into the television set and I stopped worrying about the captain or anything like that…

  Just the spiral going yellow-blue, red-green, and then starting to whirl and whirl, faster and faster, changing colors and whirling, whirling, whirling… And the sound of a kind of Coney Island carousel tinkling behind it, faster and faster and faster, whirling and whirling and whirling, flashing red-green, yellow-blue, and whirling, whirling, whirling…

  And this big hum filling my body and whirling, whirling, whirling… my muscles relaxing, going limp, whirling, whirling, whirling, all limp, whirling, whirling, whirling, oh so nice, just whirling, whirling…

  And in the center of the flashing spiraling colors, a bright dot of colorless light, right at the center, not moving, not changing, while the whole world went whirling and whirling in colors around it, and the humming was coming from the dot the way the carousel music was coming from the spinning colors and the dot was humming its song to me…

  The dot was a light way down at the end of a long, whirling, whirling tunnel. The humming started to get a little louder. The bright dot started to get a little bigger. I was drifting down the tunnel toward it, whirling, whirling, whirling…

  T minus 11 minutes… and counting…

  Whirling, whirling, whirling down a long, long tunnel of pulsing colors, whirling, whirling, toward the circle of light way down at the end of the tunnel… How nice it would be to finally get there and soak up the beautiful hum filling my body and then I could forget that I was down here in this hole in the ground with a hard brass key in my hand, just Duke and me, down here in a cave under the ground that was a spiral of flashing colors, whirling, whirling toward the friendly light at the end of the tunnel, whirling, whirling…

  T minus 10 minutes… and counting…

  The circle of light at the end of the whirling tunnel was getting bigger and bigger and the humming was getting louder and louder and I was feeling better and better and the Backfish’s missile control center was getting dimmer and dimmer as the awful weight of command got lighter and lighter, whirling, whirling, and I felt so good I wanted to cry, whirling, whirling…

  T minus 9 minutes… and counting…

  Whirling, whirling… I was whirling, Jeremy was whirling, the hole in the ground was whirling, and the circle of light at the end of the tunnel whirled closer and closer and—I was through! A place filled with yellow light. Pale metal-yellow light. Then pale metallic blue. Yellow. Blue. Yellow. Blue. Yellow-blue-yellow-blue-yellow-blue-yellow…

  Pure light pulsing… and pure sound droning. And just the feeling of letters I couldn’t read between the pulses—not-yellow and not-blue—too quick and too faint to be visible, but important, very important…

  And then came a voice that seemed to be singing from inside my bead, almost as if it were my own;

  “Oh, oh, oh… don’t I really wanna know… Oh, oh, oh… don’t I really wanna knew…”

  The world pulsing, flashing around those words I couldn’t read, couldn’t quite read, had to read, could almost read…

  “Oh, oh, oh… great God, I really wanna know…”

  Strange amorphous shapes clouding the blue-yellow-blue flickering universe, hiding the words I had to read… Damn it, why wouldn’t they get out of the way so I could find out what I had to know!

  “Tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me… Gotta know gotta know gotta know gotta know…”

  T minus 7 minutes… and counting…

  Couldn’t read the words! Why wouldn’t the captain let me read the words?

  And that voice inside me: “Gotta know… gotta know… gotta know why it hurts me so…” Why wouldn’t it shut up and let me read the words? Why wouldn’t the words hold still? Or just slow down a little? If they’d slow down a little, I could read them and then I’d know what I had to do…

  T minus 6 minutes… and counting…

  I felt the sweaty key in the palm of my hand… I saw Duke stroking his own key. Had to know! Now—through the pulsing blue-yellow-blue light and the unreadable words that were building up an awful pressure in the back of my brain—I co
uld see the Four Horsemen. They were on their knees, crying, looking up at something and begging: “Tell me tell me tell me tell me…”

  Then soft billows of rich red-and-orange fire filled the world, and a huge voice was trying to speak. But it couldn’t form the words. It stuttered and moaned—

  The yellow-blue-yellow flashing around the words I couldn’t read—the same words, I suddenly sensed, that the voice of the fire was trying so hard to form—and the Four Horsemen on their knees begging: “Tell me tell me tell me…”

  The friendly warm fire trying so hard to speak—

  “Tell me tell me tell me tell me…”

  T minus 4 minutes… and counting…

  What were the words? What was the order? I could sense my men silently imploring me to tell them. After all, I was their captain, it was my duty to tell them. It was my duty to find out!

  “Tell me tell me tell me…” the robed figures on their knees implored through the flickering pulse in my brain and I could almost make out the words… almost…

  “Tell me tell me tell me…” I whispered to the warm orange fire that was trying so hard but couldn’t quite form the words. The men were whispering it, too: “Tell me tell me…”

  T minus 3 minutes… and counting…

  The question burning blue and yellow in my brain: What was the fire trying to tell me? What were the words I couldn’t read?

  Had to unlock the words! Had to find the key!

  A key… The key? THE KEY! And there was the lock that imprisoned the words, right in front of me! Put the key in the lock… I looked at Jeremy. Wasn’t there some reason, long ago and far away, why Jeremy might try to stop me from putting the key in the lock?

  But Jeremy didn’t move as I fitted the key into the lock…

  T minus 2 minutes… and counting…

  Why wouldn’t the captain tell me what the order was? The fire knew, but it couldn’t tell. My head ached from the pulsing, but I couldn’t read the words.

  “Tell me tell me tell me…” I begged.

  Then I realized that the captain was asking, too.

  T minus 90 seconds… and counting…

  “Tell me tell me tell me…” the Horsemen begged. And the words I couldn’t read were a fire in my brain. Duke’s key was in the lock in front of us. From very far away, he said: “We have to do it together.”

  Of course… our keys… our keys would unlock the words!

  I put my key into the lock. One, two, three, we turned our keys together. A lid on the console popped open. Under the lid were three red buttons. Three signs on the console lit up in red letters: ARMED.

  T minus 60 seconds… and counting…

  The men were waiting for me to give some order. I didn’t know what the order was, A magnificent orange fire was trying to tell me but it couldn’t get the words out… Robed figures were praying to the fire…

  Then, through the yellow-blue flicker that hid the words I had to read, I saw a vast crowd encircling a tower. The crowd was on its feet begging silently—

  The tower in the center of the crowd became the orange fire that was trying to tell me what the words were—

  Became a great mushroom of billowing smoke and blinding orange-red glare…

  T minus 30 seconds… and counting…

  The huge pillar of fire was trying to tell Jeremy and me what the words were, what we had to do. The crowd was screaming at the cloud of flame. The yellow-blue flicker was getting faster and faster behind the mushroom cloud. I could almost read the words! I could see that there were two of them!

  T minus 20 seconds… and counting…

  Why didn’t the captain tell us? I could almost see the words!

  Then I heard the crowd around the beautiful mushroom cloud shouting: “DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!”

  T minus 10 seconds… and counting…

  “DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!”

  What did they want me to do? Did Duke know?

  9

  The men were waiting! What was the order? They hunched over the firing controls, waiting… The firing controls…?

  “DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!”

  8

  “DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!”: the crowd screaming.

  “Jeremy!” I shouted. “I can read the words!”

  7

  My hands hovered over my bank of firing buttons… “DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!” the words said.

  Didn’t the captain understand?

  6

  “What do they want us to do, Jeremy?”

  5

  Why didn’t the mushroom cloud give the order? My men were waiting! A good sailor craves action.

  Then a great voice spoke from the pillar of fire: “DO IT… DO IT… DO IT…”

  4

  “There’s only one thing we can do down here, Duke.”

  3

  “The order, men! Action! Fire!”

  2

  Yes, yes, yes! Jeremy—

  1

  I reached for my bank of firing buttons. All along the console, the men reached for their buttons. But I was too fast for them! I would be first!

  0

  THE BIG FLASH

  Introduction to

  No Direction Home

  A.J. Budrys, a critic I hold in high esteem, once complained of a short story collection of mine that the pieces showed no consistent overall style, I could see that he was right, but I still can’t understand what he was complaining about.

  It has always seemed self-evident to me that prose style and form should be determined by the requirement of any given material—by the style of the content, of the reality depicted, of the consciousness of the viewpoint character through whom the reader is experiencing the story at any given point. When a writer applies the same style to all the material he uses, you end up with stylization, mannerism, and ultimately self-parody.

  Nevertheless, so puissant a critic is A.J. Budrys that the technical astuteness with which he pointed out exactly what I was doing was quite valuable to me, whether I found his viewpoint wrongheaded or not. I thought about this question of style and content more deeply.

  Okay, my style from story to story was “inconsistent,” and for what I at least thought was good reason. But why should it be consistent even within the same story?

  After all, the multiplex reality we walk through all the time betrays no such stylistic consistency. Our brains are warped from one cartoon style to another with dizzying rapidity. We learn new ways of doing this to ourselves all the time. A lot of us even enjoy it. Most readers of science fiction certainly do. It’s the essence of modern consciousness, it’s where we are…

  As for where we’re going…

  No Direction Home

  How does it feel

  To be on your own?

  With no direction home.

  Like a complete unknown.

  Like a rolling stone.

  —Bob Dylan,

  from “Like a Rolling Stone”

  “But I once did succeed in stuffing it all back in Pandora’s box,” Richarson said, taking another hit. “You remember Pandora Deutchman, don’t you, Will? Everybody in the biochemistry department stuffed it all in Pandora’s box at one time or another. I seem to vaguely remember one party when you did it yourself.”

  “Oh, you’re a real comedian, Dave,” Goldberg said, stubbing out his roach and jamming a cork into the glass vial which he had been filling from the petcock at the end of the apparatus’s run. “Any day now I expect you to start slipping strychnine into the goods. That’d be pretty good for a yock, too.”

  “You know, I never thought of that before. Maybe you got something there. Let a few people go out with a smile, satisfaction guaranteed. Christ, Will, we could tell them exactly what it was and still sell some of the stuff.”

  “That’s not funny, man,” Goldberg said, handing the vial to Richarson, who carefully snugged it away with the others in the excelsior-packed box. “
It’s not funny because it’s true.”

  “Hey, you’re not getting an attack of morals, are you? Don’t move, I’ll be right back with some methalin—that oughta get your head straight.”

  “My head is straight already. Canabinolic add, our own invention.”

  “Canabinolic acid? Where did you get that, in a drugstore? We haven’t bothered with it for three years.”

  Goldberg placed another empty vial in the rack under the petcock and opened the valve. “Bought it on the street for kicks,” he said. “Kids are brewing it in their bathtubs now.” He shook his head, almost a random gesture. “Remember what a bitch the original synthesis was?”

  “Science marches on!”

  “Too bad we couldn’t have patented the stuff,” Goldberg said as he contemplated the thin stream of clear green liquid entering the open mouth of the glass vial. “We could’ve retired off the royalties by now,”

  “If we had the Mafia to collect for us.”

  “That might be arranged,”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I should look into it,” Richarson said as Goldberg handed him another full vial. “We shouldn’t be pigs about it, though. Just about ten percent off the top at the manufacturing end. I don’t believe in stifling private enterprise.”

  “No, really, Dave,” Goldberg said, “maybe we made a mistake in not trying to patent the stuff. People do patent combo psychedelics, you know.”

  “You don’t mean people, man, you mean outfits like American Marijuana and Psychedelics, Inc, They can afford the lawyers and grease. They can work the FDA’s head. We can’t.”

  Goldberg opened the petcock valve. “Yeah, well, at least it’ll be six months or so before the dope industry or anyone else figures out how to synthesize this new crap, and by that time I think I’ll have just about licked the decay problem in the cocanol extraction process. We should be one step ahead of the squares for at least another year.”

  “You know what I think, Will?” Richarson said, patting the side of the half-filled box of vials. “I think we got a holy mission, Is what I think. I think we’re servants of the evolutionary process. Every time we come up with a new psychedelic, we’re advancing the evolution of human consciousness. We develop the stuff and make our bread off it for a while, and then the dope industry comes up with our synthesis and mass-produces if, and then we gotta come up with the next drug out so we can still set our tables in style. If it weren’t for the dope industry and the way the drug laws are set up, we could stand still and become bloated plutocrats just by putting out the same old dope year after year. This way, we’re doing some good in the world; we’re doing something to further human evolution.”