Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  The image faded, the rasping voice ceased. Doak sighed and looked at his 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 no sanctuaries?"

  "Not from Security," Ryder said. "But don't be disturbed. There's no law against that yet excepting some of the old ones--and who has time for the old ones?"

  "As long as we're being frank," Doak said, "he mentioned the old Fisher place and a road as though you should know them. Friends of yours?"

  "Friends? That's our home town. Senator Arnold was very instrumental in my Department climb." Ryder paused. "And no crackpot."

  "I'll buy that," Doak agreed. "He was the man who first saw the power in combining pressure groups. He surely made some strange bedfellows."

  "Any lobbyist would be a strange bedfellow, I've been told," the Chief answered. "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 off until 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 the old Fisher place, on the Range Road?"

  "Readers," Doak answered, "or why would the--uh, Mr. Arnold be so worried."

  Ryder chuckled. "I can see them now, in the curtained room, huddling over an old railroad timetable. I think your guess is sound, Doak." He rose. "And there'll be other week-ends. That girl can wait. She isn't going 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 the bathroom."

  It was still a half hour to quitting time and Doak went back to his desk. 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't want that much information.

  Subversive kicked around in his memory and the phrase "free press." And then he remembered the Censors. The religious, the political, the scientific, the capitalist, the communist, the ridiculous and the absurd.

  Arnold had unified the Censors and they had made strange bedfellows. For where one bit of ink and paper might be anti-Christian, the next might be anti-anti-Christian and the next anti-anti-anti--ad absurdium. And sex? Where couldn't one find sex in print, even among the prissy writers? For wasn't a large part of it boy meets girl? And they 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 disguised hand of the Lenin lovers and the S.P.C.A. who didn't like dogs to play a sub-human part in the world of letters. All these, fighting each other, until Senator Arnold came forth.

  The Senator had never enjoyed a favorable press and had a habit of saying things that looked silly, three years later, in print. The Senator was the new spokesman for the Censors.

  And those who loathed sex or Christians or Republicans or Democrats or the Big Ten or the small snifter were unified under this noble man who read with his lips.

  They were for him. And they established the biggest lobby ever to crawl out of the woodwork in Washington. They had their day.

  The printers fought a little but were offered jobs in Hollywood. The paper manufacturers were promised all the government map-work plus a new sheaf of picture magazines. The publishers were all rich and ready to retire anyway.

  The writers? They were disorganized because some were rich and some weren't, the game being what it was, and the difference in viewpoint between a rich and a non-rich writer makes McCarthy and Malenkov look like brothers.

  There shall be in that area of the galaxy under American control no material of a literary or non-literary, educational or non-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 no literature?

  There were still sex, Democrats, Lenin lovers, some religion and two Republicans (on Venus). There was, of course, no Post Office Department, nor need for any.

  On Connecticut Ave (S.E.) there was a girl named June waiting for a call from Doak. She had been in a negative frame of mind for two months, but the week-end ahead had shown promise of bringing matters to 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 the week-end. Doak dialed June's number.

  His outside screen lighted up and there she was, her hair in curlers but luscious as a peach. "Hi," she said. And then frowned at the seriousness 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'll phone you, though, as soon--"

  His screen went blank. He dialed again, and again. The screen stayed blank.

  Ryder came out from his office, his hat on, looking weary. He managed a 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 find it beautiful 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 the window. "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 only three years behind in his taxes now and this extra moola on the swindle-sheet could bring him two months closer. Anyone who was only two years behind on his taxes was considered a very solid citizen.

  The cashier reached down to pull up four packets of twenties. "Well," he said quietly, "it's not my money." He tossed the two thousand out to Doak and yawned. "Remind me about it Monday if I forget, will you? I'm not much good the end of the week."

  Or any other part of the week, Doak thought. He said, "If I'm back, Monday. If I'm not I'll scream for more."

  "You do that well," the cashier said and reached up to turn off the light overhead.

  It was hot outside. The sun seemed to be imprisoned in the white corridor that stretched for miles between the government buildings and the ashment of the parking lot glittered like broken glass.

  * * * * *

  From the mines of Mars the ashment came, the best paving surface known to man. And what was Mars but mines? With all their grand talk, who wanted to leave Mother Earth? What was Venus but a sanctuary, a vacation spot, and what was Mars but mines? When a big cog like the Chief could send a lonely man all the way to Dubbinville because of a neighbor's summons, how could they expect little cogs to grow up to galactic thinking?

  Dubbinville and the heat of a Wisconsin summer--and June waiting in the apartment on Connecticut (S.E.). Doak swore quietly and thoroughly and stepped into the oven that was his Chev.

  The cooling system started with the motor and the interior was comfortable by the time he pulled into the stream of home-bound traffic. It was a fourteen-lane highway and jammed to the curbs.

  * * * * *

  There were only two signals in eight miles but traffic moved in fits and starts at this time of day. He could see the first light when he was a hundred yards from it and was sure he could make it.

  But it turned amber when he was still fifteen yards from the corner and the force-field actuated his
traffic-servant and he heard the brake control click. Well, it avoided accidents but it sure as hell was rough on brake linings. He skidded to a stop.

  Cars, cars, cars for miles. And the glittering ashment and all the boys and gals going home to plot the week-end. No magazines, no books, no papers with their social columns, so the girls would be out and looking around.

  And the men would be out and looking around and what more did you need?

  The light changed and his brake was released and he moved out at the head of his line, thinking about Dubbinville, trying to imagine it, some hamlet tucked away in a Wisconsin hill, dreaming of yesterday. Great, fine, dandy!

  In his apartment all his video sets yammered at him and he stopped in the doorway, staring. They should have turned off when he'd thrown the master switch this morning.

  In the hallway, he checked the switch, and it read off. Must be shorted....

  He went from dinette to kitchen to bedroom to living room, turning off each set individually. All of them had the same program, Milton Berle IV. He liked that better than wrestling though not much.

  In his chrome and plastic kitchen he dialed June's number.

  Her hair wasn't in the curlers. It was golden and braided and high on her classic head. She said, "Your picture isn't coming through. Who is this, please?"

  Doak said in a falsetto, "Guess."

  The screen went blank.

  Doak snapped the video switch to on and dialed Lateral-American. A brunette with vivid blue eyes came into view.

  "A priority to Dubbinville, Wisconsin, first trip possible," Doak said and gave her Security's code number.

  "Dubbinville?" she said and frowned. She consulted a station box out of his view and looked up again. "You'll have to take surface transportation from Milwaukee. It's only about twenty miles from there in Waukesha County."

  "Good enough. And when's the first to Milwaukee?"

  "At nineteen hundred, ramp eighty-seven. Kindly pick up your ticket at Booth sixty-two." The screen went blank.

  The ticket wasn't really though the name had persisted. The 'ticket' was a coin. Doak looked in his refrigerator and there was nothing worthwhile in there. He'd eat at the airport.

  He looked at the phone and decided against it. He went into the bedroom and threw some shirts and socks and a pair of clean pajamas into his durapelt bag.

  Dubbinville--and June out looking around. What a lousy deal!

  II

  The great ship lay sleekly quiet under the slanting sun, the passengers like ants measured against its giant hull. Clink, clink, clink went the coins into the counting box, the light over each seat going on with the clink of the coin.

  Then they were seated, the lights all on, and the tractor was pulling the giant to the channelled runway, guarded by the blast walls.

  Milwaukee, here I come.

  The whirr of the rolling wheels, the reverberations from the blast walls, a crescendo of sound, and they were free of earth. An accelerating, effortless flight, a faint tremor as they passed the sonic barrier, then no sensory impressions at all.

  Flight as free as the wind's passage but more silent. Through the visacrys windows a blur of blue-green. Speed without strain, power without tumult.

  Doak relaxed and for the first time since the Chief's summons he wasn't thinking of June. He was thinking of Man, from the cave to Venus, from the wheel to free flight. And something out of his childhood memory came to mind.

  Studious let me sit And hold high converse with the mighty dead

  Where had he heard that? Some Scotch poet, it must have been, for his mother recited only the Scotch poets. Studious let me sit--in front of a video set, to watch the wrestling?

  And hold high converse with the mighty dead--not in this world where there was only tomorrow, not in this world of no books. There were no writers on television--they had no need to attract an audience. They had an audience. An audience that would watch wrestling would watch anything.

  So the ad men took over the duties of the semi-writers who had prepared the radio programs. Ad men offended nobody, even those with denture breath. That could be cured and so could acne, B.O., straight hair and seam squirrels.

  Hey! he though suddenly. Watch where you're thinking, Doak Parker.

  A government man, a Security Officer, he straightened in his seat as the stewardess came along the aisle.

  She smiled at him, "Everything all right, Mr. Parker?"

  "Dandy," Doak said. "Great, fine! Why?"

  She paused, disconcerted "I beg your pardon?"

  "Why shouldn't everything be all right? Lateral-American, the skyway to the stars, right?"

  She smiled "Absolutely correct."

  "And Milwaukee," Doak added. "Do you only handle the earth runs?"

  "Until next year," she said. "I'm new."

  "I'm old," Doak said. "Is there anything to drink on board?"

  "Water, Mr. Parker."

  "I'm not that old," he said.

  She glanced at her watch. "We'll be in Milwaukee in six minutes. And that's the beer town."

  But he had no time for a glass of beer. The limousine took him to the elevated station and the last car for Dubbinville was leaving in three minutes.

  It was a nine-minute trip. He'd picked up an hour, coming west, and used but thirty-three minutes. It was still only seven o'clock when the huge elevated car hissed to a stop in front of the Dubbinville station.

  There was a smell to the place, a smell of sun-warmed grass and fruit blossoms, of lilacs and quiet rains. Doak stood on the platform, surveying the winding main street leading up into the gentle hills. People on porches and teenagers in front of the drugstore. A reddish-brown setter padded past on some secret business of his own.

  There was no whiz, no whir, no clank, no squeal, no grind. This was Dubbinville, U.S.A.

  The station agent was picking up a pair of film boxes, as Doak walked over. He smiled at Doak. "Beautiful evening, isn't it?"

  "It certainly is. Is there--a place to stay in town, a hotel?"

  The station agent shook his head. "No hotel. But you could stay at Mrs. Klein's. She takes in boarders." He pointed with a bony forefinger. "That grey house with the blue shutters, right on the curve there."

  "Thank you," Doak said. "What's the population here?"

  "Around eight hundred, last census, though we had a couple families move in since then. Hasn't changed much the last hundred years."

  "Retired farmers, mostly?" Doak asked.

  "Mmmm, I guess. Just--people."

  People.... Which meant nothing and everything. Doak had turned away before he remembered. Then he turned back. "Oh, yes, and Senator Arnold? Where does he live?"

  "Big house, over the hill," the agent said. "Only big house around here--you can't miss it. Got a high stone fence all around it and two vicious dogs. God knows what he's scared of." This was a different man from the one who had remarked on the beauty of the evening.

  "Thanks," Doak said. "Thanks again."

  Political resentment--or some local feud? Doak went along the platform to the single step that led to the street.

  There was a breeze from the east, cooling the warm air. He turned in at the drug store and could scarcely believe his eyes.

  Bent wire chairs and marble-topped tables with bent wire legs. No toasters, video sets, geiger counters, ray guns or portable garbage detergents.

  But dim and cool and with a high marble fountain. "A lime-ade," Doak said, "with a sprig of mint."

  The man behind the fountain wore a blue jacket over his white shirt. He had a thin face and a high-domed head and intelligent blue eyes.

  Doak sat on one of the high wire stools and lighted a cigarette. "Hot day, was it?"

  "Hot enough. But we get the night breeze. Stranger in town?"

  "From Milwaukee," Doak said. "Out to visit Senator Arnold."

  "Oh." The man set the drink in front of Doak.

  "Trying to talk him into leaving some money to the University," D
oak added. "Guess he's a pretty hard man to get money from."

  "I hear he is. I wouldn't know about it. He--doesn't shop in town."

  The drink was freshly flavorful, cool as springwater. Doak rubbed the beaded moisture with a thumb. "Pretty town," he said. "Pretty country around here."

  "Peaceful," the man agreed. "I've never been anywhere else, so I couldn't judge it right, I guess--but then I've never had the urge to go anywhere else, so it must be all right."

  "These days," Doak said, "a man doesn't need to go anywhere else. They bring the world right to you."

  "I guess. Hear they're having a hard time getting Venus populated. I guess people aren't as rootless as the planners figured."

  By "the planners" the man undoubtedly meant THAT WASHINGTON CROWD. Doak finished his drink and went up the street to the grey house with the blue shutters on the curve.

  There was a woman sitting on the front porch, a short and heavy woman with dark hair and brown eyes. She smiled at him and said, "Good evening," without rising.

  "Mrs. Klein?" Doak asked and she nodded. He said, "The station agent told me you rented rooms and served meals. My name is Doak Parker."

  "A pleasure, Mr. Parker. If you'll go through the living room and take that door at the east end of it, you'll come to a hall. The room at the back of the hall's the one, if you'd like to look at it." She didn't move from her chair.

  He went into the dim living room and through the door and down the hall. A mahogany bed with a patchwork quilt for a spread, a mahogany dresser and a huge wicker chair, upholstered in a bright chintz. It was a chintzy house.

  * * * * *

  He looked out the back window and saw a neat lawn, bordered with flowering shrubs. He put his grip on the floor and came back to the living room.

  There were windows along the front of this room and they were open. He could see Mrs. Klein in her chair and a girl standing next to her.

  There was no reason for him to pause but he did. He'd heard Mrs. Klein say, "Another meeting tonight, Martha?"

  "Yes." The girl's voice was defensive.

  "Why--why, Martha? Don't you realize the danger of--oh, Martha!"

  "Mother, please. There's no danger. We're careful."