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the mighty dead
_by William Campbell Gault_
------------------------------------------------------------------ _What would it be like to live in a world which has conquered the near planets but abolished all literature? Bill Gault gives us a look at a world like this--in a not too distant future which finds all our pressure groups united to rule the roost._ ------------------------------------------------------------------
On its surface the choice was an easy one--Doak Parker's career in Washington against a highly suspect country girl he had just met.
Doak Parker was thinking of June, when the light flashed. He wasthinking of the two months' campaign and the very probable probabilityof his knocking her off this week-end. It was going to be a conquestto rank among his best. It was going to be....
The buzzer buzzed, the light flashed and the image of Ryder appearedon his small desk-screen. Ryder said, "Come in, Doak. A little job forthe week-end."
_No_, Doak thought, _no, no, no! Not this week-end. Not thisparticular triumphant looming week-end. No!_ He said, "Be rightthere, Chief."
Ryder was sitting behind his desk when Doak entered. Ryder was a manof about sixty, with a lined, weary face and a straggling mustache. Henodded at the chair across the desk from him.
Ryder depressed a button on his desk and the screen beyond him beganto glow. Ryder said, "An electronic transcript of a phone call Ireceived this morning from former Senator Elmer Arnold. You know whohe is, I guess, Doak."
"Author of the Arnold Law?" Doak smiled. "Who doesn't?"
Then the image of former Senator Arnold came on the screen. He didn'tlook any more than a hundred and ten years old, a withered and thinlipped man with a complexion like ashes. He began to talk.
"Ryder, I guess you know I'm no scatterbrain and I guess you know I'mnot one to cry wolf--but there's something damned funny going on inthe old Fisher place on the Range Road. You better send a man downhere, and I mean quick. You have him contact me."
The image faded, the rasping voice ceased. Doak sighed and looked athis nails.
"Senile, you're thinking?" Ryder said quietly.
"I wasn't thinking at all, Chief," Doak said.
"Not even about that new one, that June?" the Chief asked, smiling.
Doak looked up, startled. "Is there no privacy? Are there nosanctuaries?"
"Not from Security," Ryder said. "But don't be disturbed. There's nolaw against _that_ yet excepting some of the old ones--and who hastime for the old ones?"
"As long as we're being frank," Doak said, "he mentioned the oldFisher place and a road as though you should know them. Friends ofyours?"
"Friends? That's our home town. Senator Arnold was very instrumentalin my Department climb." Ryder paused. "And no crackpot."
"I'll buy that," Doak agreed. "He was the man who first saw the powerin combining pressure groups. He surely made some strange bedfellows."
"Any lobbyist would be a strange bedfellow, I've been told," the Chiefanswered. "The Arnold Law has saved us one hell of a lot of work,Doak, and saved the Department money."
"Yes, sir," Doak said. "I'm to understand this couldn't be put offuntil Monday?"
Ryder nodded.
"And no other Security Officer would do?"
"No other."
Doak rose. "Anything else--_sir_?"
Ryder smiled. "Just one. As a guess, what do you think it is, in theold Fisher place, on the Range Road?"
"Readers," Doak answered, "or why would the--uh, Mr. Arnold be soworried."
Ryder chuckled. "I can see them now, in the curtained room, huddlingover an old railroad timetable. I think your guess is sound, Doak." Herose. "And there'll be other week-ends. That girl can wait. She isn'tgoing to spoil."
"But _I_ might explode," Doak said. "Well, it will be triple-time.That's some consolation. Enough for a new video set--I need one in thebathroom."
It was still a half hour to quitting time and Doak went back to hisdesk. He sat there, trying to remember the history of Senator Arnold.It was all on the tape in the Biography Center, he knew, but he didn'twant that much information.
_Subversive_ kicked around in his memory and the phrase "free press."And then he remembered the Censors. The religious, the political, thescientific, the capitalist, the communist, the ridiculous and theabsurd.
Arnold had unified the Censors and they had made strange bedfellows.For where one bit of ink and paper might be anti-Christian, the nextmight be anti-anti-Christian and the next anti-anti-anti--adabsurdium. And sex? Where couldn't one find sex in print, even amongthe prissy writers? For wasn't a large part of it boy meets girl? Andthey didn't meet to exchange election buttons--that much was certain.
Well, there were the P.T.A. and the N.A.M. and the fine if disguisedhand of the Lenin lovers and the S.P.C.A. who didn't like dogs to playa sub-human part in the world of letters. All these, fighting eachother, until Senator Arnold came forth.
The Senator had never enjoyed a favorable press and had a habit ofsaying things that looked silly, three years later, in print. TheSenator was the new spokesman for the Censors.
And those who loathed sex or Christians or Republicans or Democrats orthe Big Ten or the small snifter were unified under this noble man whoread with his lips.
They were for him. And they established the biggest lobby ever tocrawl out of the woodwork in Washington. They had their day.
The printers fought a little but were offered jobs in Hollywood. Thepaper manufacturers were promised all the government map-work plus anew sheaf of picture magazines. The publishers were all rich and readyto retire anyway.
The writers? They were disorganized because some were rich and someweren't, the game being what it was, and the difference in viewpointbetween a rich and a non-rich writer makes McCarthy and Malenkov looklike brothers.
_There shall be in that area of the galaxy under American controlno material of a literary or non-literary, educational ornon-educational, pertinent or impertinent nature, which is printed,written, enscribed, engraved, mimeographed, dupligraphed,electro-graved, arti-scribed, teleprinted...._
That wasn't the exact wording, but close.
Simple enough--how can there be subversive literature if there is noliterature?
There were still sex, Democrats, Lenin lovers, some religion and twoRepublicans (on Venus). There was, of course, no Post OfficeDepartment, nor need for any.
On Connecticut Ave (S.E.) there was a girl named June waiting for acall from Doak. She had been in a negative frame of mind for twomonths, but the week-end ahead had shown promise of bringing mattersto a head and maybe, considering everything, well, what the hell....
Doak looked at the newsscreen over the water cooler and saw,_Stormy and some rain. Temp. 93. 1730._
A gong sounded.
The other wage-slaves rose with assorted sighs, looking forward to theweek-end. Doak dialed June's number.
His outside screen lighted up and there she was, her hair in curlersbut luscious as a peach. "Hi," she said. And then frowned at theseriousness of his smile.
"Look, June," he said, "I--I've got to go out of town."
"I'll _bet_," she said.
"So help me, kid, it's...." Well, he couldn't say what it was. "I'llphone you, though, as soon--"
His screen went blank. He dialed again, and again. The screen stayedblank.
Ryder came out from his office, his hat on, looking weary. He manageda smile for Doak. "You'd better get to the cashier before he closes,if you haven't already."
"Yes, sir," Doak said. "Dubbinville, wasn't it?"
"Dubbinville," Ryder said. "My old Wisconsin home. You'll fin
d itbeautiful this time of the year. You'll love it, Doak."
"Yes, sir," Doak said.
The cashier was just getting ready to close when Doak came to thewindow. "Week-end trip," Doak said. "Secret."
"How much?"
Doak faced him squarely. "Two thousand."
The cashier seemed to wince but Doak's gaze didn't relent. He was onlythree years behind in his taxes now and this extra moola on theswindle-sheet could bring him two months closer. Anyone who was onlytwo years behind on his taxes was considered a very solid citizen.
The cashier reached down to pull up four packets of twenties.
The Mighty Dead Page 1