End of the Dream

by Wylie, Philip;

  On the contrary, it was to serve as a collection of the sorts of calamities that had brought man to his knees and as a varied exhibit of how individuals and groups, eyewitnesses, governments, committees, in effect, people, had reacted to those events at the moment . . . or soon, or finally.

  Such a book, or set of books, the directive observed, would be invaluable in the decades ahead as a general text designed to instill in readers, from high school age on, a wide, emotionally effective sense of how it was possible for a species that considered itself rational, civilized and self-ordered to pass through so many and such diverse catastrophes without taking effective steps to prevent or even diminish the impact of most, until too late.

  Willard Page Gulliver was, as even he acknowledged, the best possible person in former USA, at least, for that effort. As second in command at the Foundation he had stood on that pinnacle where the overall view was most knowing and broad. He had lived through the period, all of it, and had been in the midst of far more of the events he was to choose from than almost any other man.

  But that June morning, as he moved with his long-legged saunter from the White Pine Dining Hall and breakfast to the Records Building, he had felt ashamed of the results of his long and very arduous efforts. Looking at Faraway and thinking of it as the capital of ex-USA, then looking back at that nation and at others in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s, it seemed to him that nothing, no collation, not even the billions of documents available, would accomplish what the directive asked.

  The differences were too gigantic. The events too many and too diverse, too complex in cause and effect. They would seem alien, in the main, even to the children of this day and so, for the hoped-for future generations, even less credible. On a planet now largely reverting to wilderness, or the equivalent, even the old cities and their throngs would be unimaginable.

  Indeed, Will had often observed, as he labored over the anthology, that he sometimes found it hard to recall exactly how it was, even in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-seventh, where the Smythe Building stood from the late seventies, “evolving” eighties and most of the “triumphant” nineties. The tremendous buildings and dazzling, decked thoroughfares on Fifth Avenue, the sounds and smells of the great towers and the light patterns beneath, and of the weather changes above the plastic roofs over the avenues, or, again, the effects of the plastic domes covering many neopoli (commonly, “newburgs”) were almost unreal to him even as memories.

  His back-dreaming mind would recall a period of rainbow-hued street lighting as the usual thing—only to remember, later, that it had been a feature of special occasions. He would think the piny scent of Fifth Avenue had been permanent and suddenly realize it had not. “Scented city air” in Manhattan and elsewhere was a delight (or vexation) to millions until it was suddenly found that the perfumed additives, volatile essences, were slowly breaking up the molecular chains in plastic canopies overhead. That sybaritic gambit was swiftly abandoned when the snow load on the weakened “lid” over Chicago’s Loop crashed down, like an instant avalanche, and buried a noonday multitude on the sidewalks and in the traffic under ten to fifty feet of snow, ice and jagged debris.

  No one man and no number of men, he felt, could possibly choose the proper material to reproduce even a partial sense of what those who had lived through the events themselves often recollected incorrectly . . . often had forgotten, and always looked back upon with reluctance if not in curling horror.

  Will Gulliver did his best, knowing the reason for his appointment.

  What was it? Who was he?

  The poor lad who met Miles Smythe at a special school where only a few students were poor and on scholarships. This boyhood chum of Miles’s became not only second in command at the Foundation but also Miles’s brother-in-law. He became famous as well.

  Who’s Who in America gave Will’s birth date (May 12, 1953) and the record of his academic career: Princeton, Cornell and MIT, an M.A. in literature and a doctorate in biology. It stated that he had married Nora Van Dyle Smythe on May 12 in 1974, that they’d had two children (dec.) and set down his present title as assistant director of the Foundation for Human Conservancy. The entry continued with a two-column sketch listing his various intervening posts, honors, etc., club memberships, directorates and publications, both scientific and popular, including his best-selling books on conservation, pollution and other environmental topics. This précis—since Will refused to do so—Nora had compiled and sent to the editors of Who’s Who, after Miles damned Will for his “modesty,” calling it “false” and “sheer hypocrisy,” to Will’s concealed amusement. Miles’s vanity showed, there!

  What did Will look like, as he prepared to dictate his “letter” to Miles in distant Paris, at his age of seventy and as one of the beneficiaries of the Lupotte-Carson longevity treatments?

  Like, people said, a philosophy professor: tall, thin, angular, loose-jointed, long-faced with recessed eyes under black brows and heavy near-black hair in which two white streaks ran parallel; big-nosed and wide-lipped; a man who spoke in a resonant bass that was, often, a mumble; a shy man, to most, but an eloquent speaker and a man with an eerie sense of humor. He had a poetic feeling for humanity and a transcendent sense of nature—both held to realism by knowledge and by a mind of tremendous force and scope. On his long face were chisel marks of regret and grief that, by sudden and minute shifts, became the crow’s-feet of mirth. Will dressed neatly and well but wore his clothes as if they were old bathrobes. A philosopher-professor type to the casual eye, but also one born for adventure, a spellbound man, and spellbinder, a being intended for learning and understanding, a man whose laughter on a still night carried a mile.

  His enemies—most of them Foundation foes—called him an alarmist and said he spent his life “standing on the panic button.” He was called a “scientific scarecrow,” “an erudite wolf-crier,” “counterprogressive” and “anti-productive.” But no one said his data were in error—just his conclusions. And he was never, anywhere, judged to be mean, cruel, stingy, selfish, or even . . . unkind.

  It was his obvious kindness and known generosity which bent the points of most such efforts at disparagement. For the world knew from the early days of the Foundation that most of its spectacular and successful efforts to encourage mankind were promulgated by Willard Page Gulliver. Miles used the cudgel.

  In another age he might not have attained so much power, wealth and eminence; but he would certainly have had more fun.

  This man, who could not have been adequately characterized in the longest of biographies, was now trying to get across his thoughts and feelings to another, one whom he (and millions agreed) believed to be the greatest of the age.

  “Dear Miles,” he began, eyes scanning the pickup box on the desk before him, “as you asked, I’m putting what I’ve chosen for the book on chips, for you. Rather, Ethel is going to do it. The more I ponder the whole thing, the less hope I have of its effectiveness. And you will find you can skip many of my words, which, in the main, merely briefly introduce or invade these miscellaneous chapters. And what a miscellany! Much of it you can skip, to get on with the stuff less familiar to you from experience.

  “As an introduction, I have drawn heavily on the opening chapter of G. W. Packett’s 1975: Date of No Return. You may have forgotten that best seller of the late nineties but it remains a fairly adequate and certainly the most outstanding discussion (of many) of the exact time beyond which man was without hope of salvation. Packett put it at 1975. I’d have perhaps set it a little later. No matter. Something is necessary as a lead-off to explain the now nearly incredible fact that there actually was a time, some fifty years ago, or thereabouts, when man might still have been able to prevent his near extermination.”

  He switched off the instrument and pondered. Then continued:

  “I agreed with the general view that we must henceforward rely on printed words rather than 3D-TV or motion pictures and other graphic forms of education. I agree that n
o networks of the old sort, no such general systems of audiovisual broadcasting, must ever be resumed. Such media ruined the perceptions of the masses, their sensitivity, humanity, and their capacity for the evaluation, application or use of the disjointed information these old networks did scantily provide.

  “Even so, as I have gathered this material for, now, a year and a half, I often think, If only I could show the pictures! Say, then, I’ve done what I could with the one medium we agree is basic: the printed word.”

  He hesitated and his tone changed as he departed from that subject. Miles would want, as he knew better than any other person, all the news of local interest, trivial, novel, routine, whatever. So he began to supply it, free of the hesitancy he’d previously shown and, instead, genially, often with a wide grin.

  “First, about the fusion reactor in the Hudson gorge. I flew down in the electro-chopper last week when we had word here they were ready for a trial run. It has been quite an operation! The reactor, you will recall, was set in ooze at two thousand feet. But your suggestion of trying to use a work-sub was good, and once they got the plant cleared with remote-controlled hydraulic hoses it wasn’t too difficult to engineer a tunnel with that equipment. In three days, Ellison and his people had the plasma flow-swell—at the lowest level, pro tem—and, of course, the underground lines were ready. We expect to have the plasma on ‘regular’ and more juice than we need for everything, very soon.

  “We took a short, spendthrift cruise over Manhattan before returning here. Our approach was spotted and signs of life were largely concealed before we were very near. But there are dozens of boats, maybe scores, using gas motors, I’d bet. At night, as many as a thousand lights are said to be visible. There have been more fires. Two or three more of the older skyscrapers, none of more than eighty stories, have fallen. I suppose, winter storms. The water level is down some three centimeters if the Orange Mountain recording gauges in Jersey are correct. And I have reports from the automatic station in Antarctica. New snow and lots of it, which is great news.

  “Things are normal here, to strain that adjective.

  “But bizarre events are diminishing. The latest of that sort, since it verifies one of your predictions, will fascinate you. The victims of it—and their end—are of interest, especially as it suggests a situation that may be commoner in all uncontrolled areas than even you had hitherto thought.

  “Shortly after my return from the Hudson Fusion Plant the chemo-monitors here showed a sudden rise of noxious fumes. After a quarter hour of high readings on a twenty-one-knot westerly, we felt we should check. Cahill and Blaine went out with the smaller electro-copter, trailing standard sensors. What they found was a private golf course that does not appear on the last geodetic maps of USA. Even more odd was the fact that, as our people came in, they realized the course was in good condition: narrow fairways, not badly weed-grown, and one or two shady greens still nearly in shape for putting.

  “Camouflage nets still hung over some stretches and it had evidently been constructed—at what a cost!—to look from the air like patches of pasture and of woods, the netting serving to disguise its actual nature. Also, it had been built, like so many late twentieth-century developments, over massive areas of solid-waste fill, layered with bulldozed earth, as usual. We guessed that it was about twenty years old, that is, from the last fill and cover to the present. Around it were several low residences, tree-hidden in most instances and, where in the open, partly disguised to look like abandoned farmhouses and barns.

  “We believe the fill came from the new city, North Iroquois, which you will remember went up on an abandoned military reservation, Fort Drum, I believe, in the late 1980s. Anyway, the road from the hidden residences around the very carefully concealed course led off toward that general area.

  “Our crew didn’t land—the area was still toxic as hell. But they got a shift of wind that permitted some low-level reconnaissance. So they can make a guess about what happened and this is why, really, I send the story. Perhaps as many as a dozen families or groups, since there were six large houses and all of them may not have been spotted, had been living there until, probably, summer before last. With servants, plainly, owing to the kept-up course and several other, familiar indices.

  “Forced labor, of course, possibly brainwashed but possibly willing, to some degree, simply for the chance of survival at whatever cost in slaving. The heavy equipment the crew saw was electrically driven, or the hide-out would have been spotted in the 2010s when the federal air checks functioned best, and last, too.

  “At any rate, the usual had happened, summer before last, believe it or not. A golf cart had holed through. It went down about thirty feet, and by using the on-board spot the crew could see the cart on its side and not quite drowned in the usual soup, which was still bubbling. Three more recent cave-ins were found and there may be others. One is about a hundred feet in diameter and boiling hard—the latest one, probably, and so the one which presented us with the high reading.

  “The crew took the usual measures, first collecting samples, then bombing in the craters till they were adequately sealed. We have an analysis of the gases and it’s pretty much like many others: CO, CO2, sulphur compounds, methane and nitrogen oxides and various organic compounds of heavy metals.

  “Plainly, when the golf cart holed through to the subterranean mess that had been combining and stewing beneath the fairways for years, it started a gas and steam geyser that wiped out the local crowd, probably before they even had time to get clear. A lot of lower trees, shrubs, are dead, many of the taller trees show blighting and some of them are gone. What is left of a few bodies—all ages—can be seen here and there. Bones, and all scattered. Coyotes or timber wolves from Canada.

  “All that, as it may interest one of the subcommittees in Paris. So there may well be, even in our area, other such hideaways established covertly by people with plenty of money, well-hidden spots where families survive, still in hiding, of the sort we had imagined extinct. No signs of life, of course. The crew flew around with a bull horn for an hour, calling, asking for signals. But since this group was alive, and even playing golf, two summers ago, it seems that we would be wise to keep an eye out, at this late date. With more power available we can get more ‘batteries’ charged, of course, and scout with greater care—world-wide, in the end—but we should consider more power allocation for the aircraft available, to make sure this sort of criminal isolation isn’t commoner than the surveys have suggested, not to say as dangerous, possibly, as the Outsiders were and the Bandits are.”

  Will paused there, pressed a button, dialed an instrument with about fifty holes for the stylus he used, and waited, eyes on his desk. In seconds and almost without sound, a book slid on a transparent, near-invisible chute to the spot where his eyes held. Its dust jacket was perceptibly faded but its title and the design around it still could be discerned clearly. The volume itself, cloth bound in red, seemed almost in mint condition. Around the title: 1975: Date of No Return and the author’s name, G. W. Packett, was a line drawing of a supersonic airplane from which flames seemed to rip forth with a roar the somewhat dimmed colors could not yet quite subdue.

  Will picked up the book, replaced it, shrugged and returned to his letter. This he did rapidly and with a faint look of amusement, for he knew Miles would care more for the “domestic” Faraway news than for anything he had said thitherto.

  “. . . we had two girls born since you left to Mrs. Cleveland and Martha Justanson. Great shape, all.

  “. . . one death, poor old Hinckle, just when the medicos were pretty sure his mind was coming back. It probably did—and so was the cause of death. Hinckle, you doubtless recall, was on the last vehicle to get clear of Marie Byrd Land. . . .

  “. . . and we have another geneticist. Oliver Hazard Perry Graves, no less! He made it on foot over the winter to here from North Dakota. Pretty exhausted and tattered, some nasty abrasions and cuts, his starting pack was stripped by Bandits along t
he way. Beard two feet long and the second thing he wanted was a barber. The first was a triple bourbon, if available. He’s going to be a tremendous asset for us all.

  “Now all we need are some more, or some molecular biologists, electron battery engineers, surgeons, theoretical math teachers, carpenters, masons, metalworkers, steamfitters, a plumber or two, etc., etc. ad infinitum. For one of any such I’d trade three of our clergymen, the lot, so far, praise God. . . .”

  He signed off affectionately, shut down the recording device and immediately switched it on for postscripts:

  “Your suggestion about the mass of stuff that’s coming with this—the idea of choosing material as if for precocious teenagers in the nineteenth century—was exceedingly helpful. Thinking how stupefied a young person living in the late 1800s would be to hear what lay ahead for his heirs was a superb trick, or so I felt. However, it often led me to use the old names more than I might have—along with many other terms now gone, renamed or altered, and I haven’t bothered to change those. Any of the secretaries can update them where needed.

  “Also, the next (really, first) ‘chapter,’ the excerpts from Packett, may or may not be relevant, a thing I cannot decide. He was a rather stuffy writer, and awkward, but he’s sounder even than some of the ‘Hure’ scholars and less fatuous than other ‘popularizers.’

  “I was about to sign off when Ethel buzzed to say I’ll have to transmit this stuff in two parts, owing to official need for the equipment. So, in the time I now have for a first shot, I’m going to send you, Miles, the final part of the book, along with whatever else can be sent of the beginning, enough, I calculate roughly, to take you into the 1980s, somewhere. This, because I wrote the final section, Part VII, myself. And I cannot wait to know your (anybody’s) judgment. If you or they don’t like it, I must redo the book from 2015 to now.

  “When I get a time opening, I’ll send what I here omit, the ‘middle’ part of the book, from wherever cut off (so as to include my finale) on to the year 2018. After 1980, of course, the material gets grimmer, involves human masses and relates to some horrors science didn’t understand. But from what there is here and the final piece by me, I hope people can get an idea of whether or not I was the man for this ‘impossible’ job. Four thousand people here, and I, send love. Devotedly, if nervously (like any prima donna), yours, Will.”