Universe 8 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Terry Carr

  Odd, she thought, that she should remember that now. Her sexual interest in him was no greater than for any of the others at High Hopes. A recreation, a kind of warming exercise that bound them all together and eased the days of labor into sleep.

  He returned, smiling in the wan lamplight. “Can you stay in town tonight?”

  “Why?” she said.

  “Not so I can hear more lectures on High Hopes, I assure you of that. No, I want to sleep with you again.”

  “Oh,” she said, and realized she was saying it stiffly, formally, that something in her was drawing away from Brian and the memories of Brian.

  “Come on.”

  “It isn’t that way, Brian. You don’t own somebody—”

  “I know, I’ve heard it. These flesh shows”—he gestured at the tangled bodies on the ceiling above—”are very much a cultural remnant. Like everybody in here.”

  Joanna looked around, grimacing. “Unsatisfied people. They can’t stand being frogs in a small pond.”

  “No, it’s not that,” Brian said wearily. “They remember when they could do more, be more. Make sound sculptures, explore new things, use their minds for once—”

  “Loaf around in a university.”

  He smiled wanly. “I’m surprised you remember the word. The regime has just ruled that only the Davis Agri-works is legal now—crop studies, that’s it. I don’t—”

  “Look, Brian,” she said abruptly. “I came into town to get some supplies and pick you up. The bus doesn’t run into mid-Sur any more, so you’d have had to hike in. We’ve got a lot of new people drifting in, refugees from southern California, starving, most of them. Don’t know a damn thing about work. That’s why we need you—you’re our best, y’know. We have to—”

  “I told you,” he said, stony-faced. “I’m going on vacation.”

  “Those damned franging computers don’t need you! We do. They could get animals—”

  “I’ve told you before. Animals don’t have enough holographic data-storing capability. They lose too much detail.”

  “Then the hell with the whole skrag!”

  “That’s right,” he said savagely, “tear it down. You don’t understand it so you want to sacrifice the whole biosystems inventory, the ecological index, everything that’s holding this poor battered world together—”

  “Don’t come on noble with me. You like the pay, getting to live back in the rotten city again—”

  Her voice rose to a shrill edge and several people turned their heads, frowning. She was suddenly aware of how old and strange and distant all these people were, with their broken dreams and memories. And she glanced at the only window in the room to see a yellowish fog pressing against the pane. Beaded moisture glinted in the wan light. She would have to get started soon, before it thickened.

  “You’re right,” Brian said, and his voice was oddly quiet. “I like to be among my own kind. I don’t mind the price I pay. They hook me up during peak periods and the computers, which don’t have enough solid state electronics banks left to do the calculations, push into my lobes and use the space there. I know what you think of it and I don’t care. I know it looks grotesque to you, on the outside. I lie there still as a stone and the data flits through me, the machines using my neural capacity to do their work, and it’s like dreaming and drifting and dreaming again, only when you wake up you can’t remember what it was all about. You’re vacated—every memory you had in those spaces is wiped, gone. But it’s usually unimportant stuff and, Joanna, that doesn’t matter, that isn’t it. That’s merely the price—what I get is freedom, time to talk to other people who’re working in my field and still care about those things, some feeling of the old days.”

  “So you’re going to stay there.”

  “Right.”

  “Instead of working for a better world, here—” “I’m going to clutch after the only way I can stay in the old one. And I’m needed there, too, Joanna. The cost of making new computer elements is enormous. How much better, to link into the best, most compact neural net ever made—our brains—and use the few educated people left to work with the computer systems, guide them, be both storage space and programmers—”

  Her face barely repressed the rage she felt. “We need you. You’re a resource, trained people are scarce who’ll work in the communes, and—”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. With an abrupt gesture he tossed back the glass of wine. “I want the old way. I’m not going to bust my tail.”

  They looked at each other and she suddenly felt alien and alone in this strange place, this room of people who had washed up like refuse in the towns, refusing to go out into the forgiving countryside any more, clinging to the dear dead past, and felt the abyss that opened between them and her. They were living in some place that the world had once been, and would never be again. So in an odd way she and her kind were parents to their elders now, and must shelter them against the world. It was at that moment that she realized that the revolution she had been a part of was over, the morning was finished, and the long day of the human race was beginning.

  “Have some more wine, Brian,” she said softly after a while. “I’ve got to head on back pretty soon now.”

  <>

  * * * *

  There are no secrets in science, but history is a somewhat different field of knowledge: facts are continually lost in the deepening slit of time. Trust R. A. Lafferty to dig them out, however, for he approaches reality without preconceptions. (One of his characters in the novel Past Master escaped from prison by walking through walls. “It isn’t difficult,” he said. “I believe that it has been insufficiently tried.”)

  Consider this history of the first great series of television dramas, produced in 1873 by Aurelian Bentley and starring the remarkably resourceful actress Clarinda Calliope. Till recently these dramas have been lost, but Lafferty has gone to great expense (one hundred and thirty-five dollars) to resurrect them. Due to the peculiar nature of their recording, he may also have discovered some darker secrets behind the making of those dramas. . . .

  * * * *

  SELENIUM GHOSTS OF THE EIGHTEEN SEVENTIES

  R. A. Lafferty

  Even today, the “invention” of television is usually ascribed to Paul Nipkow of Germany, and the year is given as 1884. Nipkow used the principle of the variation in the electrical conductivity of selenium when exposed to light, and he used scanning discs as mechanical effectors.

  What else was there for him to use before the development of the phototube and the current-amplifying electron tube? The resolution of Nipkow’s television was very poor due to the “slow light” characteristics of selenium response and the lack of amplification. There were, however, several men in the United States who transmitted a sort of television before Nipkow did so in Germany.

  Resolution of the images of these even earlier experimenters in the field (Aurelian Bentley, Jessy Polk, Samuel J. Perry, Gifford Hudgeons) was even poorer than was the case with Nipkow. Indeed, none of these pre-Nipkow inventors in the television field is worthy of much attention, except Bentley. And the interest in Bentley is in the content of his transmissions and not in his technical ineptitude.

  It is not our object to enter into the argument of who really did first “invent” television (it was not Paul Nipkow, and it probably was not Aurelian Bentley or Jessy Polk either); our object is to examine some of the earliest true television dramas in their own queer “slow light” context. And the first of those “slow light” or selenium (“moonshine”) dramas were put together by Aurelian Bentley in the year 1873.

  The earliest art in a new field is always the freshest and is often the best. Homer composed the first and freshest, and probably the best, epic poetry. Whatever cave man did the first painting, it remains among the freshest as well as the best paintings ever done. Aeschylus composed the first and best tragic dramas, Euclid invented the first and best of the artful mathematics (we speak here of mathematics as an art wi
thout being concerned with its accuracy or practicality). And it may be that Aurelian Bentley produced the best of all television dramas in spite of their primitive aspect.

  Bentley’s television enterprise was not very successful despite his fee of one thousand dollars per day for each subscriber. In his heyday (or his hey-month, November of 1873), Bentley had fifty-nine subscribers in New York City, seventeen in Boston, fourteen in Philadelphia, and one in Hoboken. This gave him an income of ninety-one thousand dollars a day (which would be the equivalent of about a million dollars a day in today’s terms), but Bentley was extravagant and prodigal, and he always insisted that he had expenses that the world wotted not of. In any case, Bentley was broke and out of business by the beginning of the year 1874. He was also dead by that time.

  The only things surviving from The Wonderful World of Aurelian Bentley are thirteen of the “slow light” dramas, the master projector, and nineteen of the old television receivers. There are probably others of the receivers around somewhere, and persons coming onto them might not know what they are for. They do not look much like the television sets of later years.

  The one we use for playing the old dramas is a good kerosene-powered model which we found and bought for eighteen dollars two years ago. If the old sets are ever properly identified and become collectors’ items, the price on them may double or even triple. We told the owner of the antique that it was a chestnut roaster, and with a proper rack installed it could likely be made to serve as that.

  We bought the master projector for twenty-six dollars. We told the owner of that monster that it was a chicken incubator. The thirteen dramas in their canisters we had for thirty-nine dollars total. We had to add formaldehyde to activate the dramas, however, and we had to add it to both the projector and the receiver; the formaldehyde itself came to fifty-two dollars. I discovered soon that the canisters with their dramas were not really needed, nor was the master projector. The receiver itself would repeat everything that it had ever received. Still and all, it was money well spent.

  The kerosene burner activated a small dynamo that imposed an electrical grid on the selenium matrix and awakened the memories of the dramas.

  There was, however, an oddity in all the playbacks. The film-fix of the receiver continued to receive impressions so that every time a “slow light” drama is presented it is different, because of the feedback. The resolution of the pictures improves with use and is now much clearer and more enjoyable than originally.

  The librettos of the first twelve of the thirteen Bentley dramas are not good, not nearly as good as the librettos of the Jessy Polk and the Samuel J. Perry dramas later in the decade. Aurelian Bentley was not a literary man; he was not even a completely literate man. His genius had many gaping holes in it. But he was a passionately dramatic man, and these dramas which he himself devised and directed have a great sweep and action to them. And even the librettos from which he worked are valuable for one reason. They tell us, though sometimes rather ineptly and vaguely, what the dramas themselves are all about. Without these outlines, we would have no idea in the world of the meaning of the powerful dramas.

  There was an unreality, a “ghostliness,” about all the dramas, as though they were made by sewer light underground: or as if they were made by poor quality moonlight. Remember that the element selenium (the metal that is not a metal), the chemical basis of the dramas, is named from Selene, the moon.

  Bentley did not use “moving pictures” of quickly succeeding frames to capture and transmit his live presentation dramas. Although Muybridge was in fact working on the zoopraxiscope (the first “moving picture” device) at that very time, his still incomplete work was not known to Aurelian Bentley. Samuel J. Perry and Gilford Hudgeons did use “moving picture” techniques for their primitive television dramas later in the decade; but Bentley, fortunately perhaps, did not. Each of Bentley’s thirty-minute live dramas, however it appeared for the first time in the first television receiver, was recorded in one single matrix or frame: and, thereafter, that picture took on a life and growth of its own. It was to some extent independent of sequence (an effect that has been attempted and failed of in several of the other arts); and it had a free way with time and space generally. This is part of the “ghostliness” of the dramas, and it is a large part of their power and charm. Each drama was one evolving moment outside of time and space (though mostly the scenes were in New York City and in the Barrens of New Jersey).

  Of course there was no sound in these early Bentley dramas, but let us not go too far astray with that particular “of course.” “Slow sound” as well as “slow light” is a characteristic of selenium response, and we will soon see that sound did in fact creep into some of the dramas after much replaying. Whether their total effects were accidental or by design, these early television dramas were absolutely unique.

  The thirteen “slow light” dramas produced by Aurelian Bentley in the year 1873 (the thirteenth of them, the mysterious Pettifogers of Philadelphia, lacks Bentley’s “Seal of Production,” and indeed it was done after his death: and yet he appears as a major character in it) the thirteen were these:

  * * * *

  1. The Perils of Patience, a Damnable Chase. In this, Clarinda Calliope, who was possibly one of the greatest actresses of American or world drama, played the part of Patience Palmer in the title role. Leslie Whitemansion played the role of Simon Legree. Kirbac Fouet played the part of “the Whip,” a sinister character. X. Paul McCoffin played the role of “the Embalmer.” Jaime del Diablo played “the Jesuit,” one of the most menacing roles in all drama. Torres Malgre played “the Slaver,” who carried the forged certificate showing that Patience had a shadow of black blood and so might be returned to slavery on San Croix. Inspiro Spectralski played “the Panther” (Is he a Man? Is he a Ghost?), who is the embodiment of an evil that is perhaps from beyond the world. Hubert Saint Nicholas played the part of “the Guardian,” who is really a false guardian.

  This Damnable Chase is really a galloping allegory. It is the allegory of good against evil, of light against darkness, of inventiveness against crude obtuseness, of life against death, of openness against intrigue, of love against hatred, of courage against hellish fear. For excitement and intensity, this drama has hardly an equal. Time and again, it seemed that the Embalmer, striking out of the dark, would stab Patience with his needle full of the dread embalming fluid and so trap her in the rigidity of living death. Time and again, it seemed that the Whip would cut the flesh of Patience Palmer with his long lash with viper poison on its iron tip that would bring instant death. At every eventuality, it seemed as though Simon Legree or the Slaver would enslave her body, or the Jesuit or the Panther would enslave her soul. And her mysterious Guardian seems always about to save her, but his every attempt to save her has such reverse and disastrous effects as to cast doubt on the honesty and sincerity of the Guardian.

  A high point of the drama is the duel of the locomotives that takes place during a tempestuous night in the West Orange Switching Yards. Again and again, Patience Palmer is all but trapped on railroad trestles by thundering locomotives driven by her adversaries (the West Orange Switching Yards seem to consist almost entirely of very high railroad trestles). Patience finally gets control of a locomotive of her own on which to escape, but the locomotives of her enemies thunder at her from every direction so that she is able to switch out of their way only at the last brink of every moment.

  The Embalmer attempts to stab her with his needleful of embalming fluid every time their locomotives pass each other with double thunder and only inches to spare. The Whip tries to lash her with his cruel lash with its poisoned tip; and the Slaver threatens her with the outreached forged certificate of color, and only by fantastic cringing can she cringe back far enough to keep from being touched by it as their locomotives roar past each other in opposite directions.

  It seems impossible that the racing locomotives can come so close and not hit each other, with their dazzling switchi
ng from track to track. And then (Oh, God save us all!) the Panther (Is he a Man? Is he a Devil?) has leapt from his own locomotive to that of Patience Palmer: he is behind her on her own locomotive, and she does not see him. He comes closer—