The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy

by Edited by The Playboy Editors

  Hartford grinned mirthlessly.

  “Really, Clarke!” he said (I was glad he hadn’t first-named me). “I’m a little disappointed. Surely you know that the States is years behind in payload capacity! And do you imagine that the old T.3 is Russia’s last word?”

  It was at this moment that I began to take him very seriously. He was perfectly right. The T.3 could inject at least five times the payload of any American missile into that critical 22,000-mile orbit—the only one that would deliver a satellite apparently fixed above the Earth. And by the time the U.S. could match that performance, heaven knows where the Russians would be. Yes, Heaven certainly would know....

  “All right,” I conceded. “But why should fifty million American homes start switching channels just as soon as they can tune into Moscow? I admire the Russian people, but their entertainment is worse than their politics. After the Bolshoi, what have you? And for me, a little ballet goes a long, long way.”

  Once again I was treated to that peculiarly humorless smile. Hartford had been saving up his Sunday punch, and now he let me have it.

  “You were the one who brought in the Russians,” he said. “They’re involved, sure—but only as contractors. The independent agency I’m working for is hiring their services.”

  “That,” I remarked dryly, “must be some agency.”

  “It is; just about the biggest. Even though the States tries to pretend it doesn’t exist.”

  “Oh,” I said, rather stupidly. “So that’s your sponsor.”

  I’d heard those rumors that the U.S.S.R. was going to launch satellites for the Chinese; now it began to look as if the rumors fell far short of the truth. But how far short, I’d still no conception.

  “You are so right,” continued Hartford, obviously enjoying himself, “about Russian entertainment. After the initial novelty, the Nielsen rating would drop to zero. But not with the programs I’m planning. My job is to find material that will put everyone else out of business when it goes on the air. You think it can’t be done? Finish that drink and come up to my room. I’ve a highbrow movie about ecclesiastical art that I’d like to show you.”

  Well, he wasn’t crazy, though for a few minutes I wondered. I could think of few titles more carefully calculated to make the viewer switch channels than the one that flashed on the screen:

  ASPECTS OF THIRTEENTH CENTURY TANTRIC SCULPTURE.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” Hartford chuckled, above the whir of the projector. ‘That title saves me having trouble with inquisitive Customs inspectors. It’s perfectly accurate, but we’ll change it to something with a bigger box-office appeal when the time comes.”

  A couple of hundred feet later, after some innocuous architectural long-shots, I saw what he meant....

  You may know that there are certain temples in India, covered with superbly executed carvings of a kind that we in the west scarcely associate with religion. To say that they are frank is a laughable understatement; they leave nothing, to the imagination—any imagination. Yet at the same time they are genuine works of art. And so was Hartford’s movie.

  It had been shot, in case you’re interested, at the Temple of the Sun, Konarak. “An awkward place to reach,” Hartford told me, “but decidedly worth the trouble.” I’ve since looked it up; it’s on the Orissa coast, about twenty-five miles northeast of Puri. The reference books are pretty mealy-mouthed; some apologize for the “obvious” impossibility of providing illustrations, but Percy Brown’s Indian Architecture minces no words. The carvings, it says primly, are of “a shamelessly erotic character that have no parallel in any known building.” A sweeping claim, but I can believe it after seeing that movie.

  Camera work and editing were brilliant, the ancient stones coming to life beneath the roving lens. There were breathtaking time-lapse shots as the rising sun chased the shadows from bodies intertwined in ecstasy; sudden startling close-ups of scenes which at first the mind refused to recognize; soft-focus studies of stone shaped by a master’s hand in all the fantasies and aberrations of love; restless zooms and pans whose meaning eluded the eye until they froze into patterns of timeless desire, eternal fulfillment. The music— mostly percussion, with a thin, high thread of sound from some stringed instrument that I could not identify—perfectly fitted the tempo of the cutting. At one moment it would be languorously slow, like the opening bars of Debussy’s L’Après-midi;then the drums would swiftly work themselves up to a frenzied, almost unendurable climax. The art of the ancient sculptors, and the skill of the modern cameraman, had combined across the centuries to create a poem of rapture, an orgasm on celluloid which I would defy any man to watch unmoved.

  There was a long silence when the screen flooded with light and the lascivious music ebbed into exhaustion.

  “My God!” I said, when I had recovered some of my composure. “Are you going to telecast that?”

  Hartford laughed.

  “Believe me,” he answered, “that’s nothing; it just happens to be the only reel I can carry round safely. We’re prepared to defend it any day on grounds of genuine art, historic interest, religious tolerance—oh, we’ve thought of all the angles. But it doesn’t really matter; no one can stop us. For the first time in history, any form of censorship’s become utterly impossible. There’s simply no way of enforcing it; the customer can get what he wants, right in his own home. Lock the door, switch on the TV set to our—dare I call it our blue network?—and settle back. Friends and family will never know.”

  “Very clever,” I said, “but don’t you think such a diet will soon pall?”

  “Of course; variety is the spice of life. Well have plenty of conventional entertainment; let me worry about that. And every so often we’ll have information programs—I hate that word propaganda—to tell the cloistered American public what’s really happening in the world. Our special features will just be the bait.”

  “Mind if I have some fresh air?” I said. “It’s getting stuffy in here.”

  Hartford drew the curtains and let daylight back into the room. Below us lay that long curve of beach, with the outrigger fishing boats drawn up beneath the palms, and the little waves falling in foam at the end of their weary march from Africa. One of the loveliest sights in the world, but I couldn’t focus on it now. I was still seeing those writhing stone limbs, those faces frozen with passions which the centuries could not slake.

  That slick voice continued behind my back.

  “You’d be astonished if you knew just how much material there is. Remember, we’ve absolutely no taboos. If you can film it, we can telecast it.” He walked over to his bureau and picked up a heavy, dog-eared volume. “This has been my bible,” he said, “or my Sears, Roebuck, if you prefer. Without it, I’d never have sold the series to my sponsors. They’re great believers in science, and they swallowed the whole thing, down to the last decimal point. Recognize it?”

  I nodded; whenever I enter a room, I always monitor my host’s literary tastes. “Dr. Kinsey, I presume.”

  “I guess I’m the only man who’s read it from cover to cover, and not just looked up his own vital statistics. You see, it’s the only piece of market research in its field. Until something better comes along, we’re making the most of it. It tells us what the customer wants, and we’re going to supply it.”

  “All of it? Some people have odd tastes.”

  “That’s the beauty of the movie you just saw—it appeals to just about every taste.”

  “You can say that again,” I muttered.

  He saw that I was beginning to get bored; there are some kinds of single-mindedness that I find depressing. But I had done Hartford an injustice, as he hastened to prove.

  “Please don’t think,” he said anxiously, “that sex is our only weapon. Expose is almost as good. Ever see the job Ed Murrow did on the late sainted Joe McCarthy? That was milk and water compared with the profiles we’re planning in Washington Confidential.

  “And there’s our Can You Take It? series, designed t
o separate the men from the milksops. We’ll issue so many advance warnings that every red-blooded American will feel he has to watch the show. It will start innocently enough, on ground nicely prepared by Hemingway. You’ll see some bullfighting sequences that will really lift you out of your seat—or send you running to the bathroom—because they show all the little details you never get in those cleaned-up Hollywood movies.

  “We’ll follow that with some really unique material that cost us exactly nothing. Do you remember the photographic evidence the Nurnberg war trials turned up? You’ve never seen it, because it wasn’t publishable. There were quite a few amateur photographers in the concentration Camps, who made the most of opportunities they’d never get again. Some of them were hanged on the testimony of their own cameras, but their work wasn’t wasted. It will lead nicely into our series Torture Through the Ages—very scholarly and thorough, yet with a remarkably wide appeal...

  “And there are dozens of other angles, but by now you’ll have the general picture. The Avenue thinks it knows all about Hidden Persuasion—believe me, it doesn’t. The world’s best practical psychologists are in the east these days. Remember Korea, and brainwashing? We’ve learned a lot since then. There’s no need for violence any more; people enjoy being brainwashed, if you set about it the right way.”

  “And you,” I said, “are going to brainwash the United States. Quite an order.”

  “Exactly—and the country will love it, despite all the screams from Congress and the churches. Not to mention the networks, of course. They’ll make the biggest fuss of all, when they find they can’t compete with us.”

  Hartford glanced at his watch, and gave a whistle of alarm. “Time to pack,” he said. “I’ve got to be at that unpronounceable airport of yours by six. There’s no chance, I suppose, that you can fly over to Macao and see us sometime?”

  “Not a hope; but I’ve got a pretty good idea of the picture now. And incidentally, aren’t you afraid that I’ll spill the beans?”

  “Why should I be? The more publicity you can give us, the better. Although our advertising campaign doesn’t go into top gear for a few months yet, I feel you’ve earned this advance notice. As I said, your books helped to give me the idea.”

  His gratitude was quite genuine, by God; it left me completely speechless.

  “Nothing can stop us,” he declared—and for the first time the fanaticism that lurked behind that smooth, cynical facade was not altogether under control. “History is on our side. We’ll be using America’s own decadence as a weapon against her, and it’s a weapon for which there’s no defense. The Air Force won’t attempt space piracy by shooting down a satellite nowhere near American territory. The FCC can’t even protest to a country that doesn’t exist in the eyes of the State Department. If you’ve any other suggestions, I’d be most interested to hear them.”

  I had none then, and I have none now. Perhaps these words may give some brief warning before the first teasing advertisements appear in the trade papers, and may start stirrings of elephantine alarm among the networks. But will it make any difference? Hartford did not think so, and he may be right.

  “History is on our side.” I cannot get those words out of my head. Land of Lincoln and Franklin and Melville, I love you and I wish you well. But into my heart blows a cold wind from the past; for I remember Babylon.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  WORD OF HONOR

  BY ROBERT BLOCH

  With his novel “Psycho? Robert Bloch reinforced the enviable refutation he had established some years earlier by his famous short story, “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper.” In between these two landmarks of his career, he turned out a wealth of cunning fiction, and ever since “Psycho” became a landmark of Alfred Hitchcock’s career as well, Bloch has been lucratively busy writing for the motion picture and television screens, in addition to fashioning fiction for playboy. He also finds time to be an incorrigible punster, a pungent raconteur, and an in-demand after-dinner speaker at meetings of organizations such as The Count Dracula Society. “Word of Honor” puts a few new kinks in a question that has troubled mankind at least as far back as jesting Pilate: “What is truth?”

  ~ * ~

  AT 2:27 IN THE AFTERNOON, Homer Gans, cashier, entered the office of his employer, the President of the First National Bank.

  “I’ve got something to tell you,” he murmured. “It’s about the reserve fund. I’m into it for 40,000 dollars.”

  “You’re what?”

  “I embezzled from the reserve fund,” Homer said. “Been doing it for years now, and nobody ever caught on. Some of the money went to play the races, and a lot of it has been paying somebody’s rent. You wouldn’t think to look at me that I’d be keeping a blonde on the side. But then, you don’t know how it is at home.”

  The President frowned. “Oh yes I do,” he answered, taking a deep breath. “As a matter of fact, I happen to be keeping a blonde myself. Though to tell the truth, she isn’t a natural blonde.”

  Homer hesitated, then sighed. “To tell the truth,” he said, “neither is mine.”

  Between 2:28 and 2:43, quite a number of things happened. A model nephew told his rich and elderly uncle to go to hell and quit trying to run his life. An equally model husband told his wife he had hated her and their children for years and frequently wished they’d all drop dead. A star shoe salesman told a female customer to quit wasting time trying on small sizes and go out and buy a couple of rowboats. At one of the embassies, a visiting diplomat paused in the midst of a flattering toast and abruptly emptied the contents of his glass upon the bald head of the American Ambassador.

  And--

  “Holy Toledo!” howled Wally Tibbets, Managing Editor of the Daily Express. “Has everybody flipped?”

  Reporter Joe Satterlee shrugged.

  “In nine years on this rag, I’ve never pulled that ‘Stop the presses!’ stuff. But we’re standing by for a replate right now— and we’re going to stand by until we find out what gives. Got enough lead copy for a dozen front pages right now, and none of it makes sense.”

  “Such as?” Satterlee gazed calmly at his boss.

  “Take your pick. Our senior Senator just issued a statement of resignation—says he’s unfit to hold office. That labor leader who built the big new union headquarters uptown went and shot himself. Police headquarters can’t keep up with the guys who are coming in and confessing everything from murder to mopery. And if you think that’s something, you ought to hear what’s going on down in the advertising department. Clients are canceling space like mad. Three of the biggest used-car dealers in town just yanked their ads.”

  Joe Satterlee yawned. “What goes on here?”

  “That’s just what I want you to find out. And fast.” Wally Tibbets stood up. “Go see somebody and get a statement. Try the University. Tackle the science department.”

  Satterlee nodded and went downstairs to his car.

  Traffic seemed to be disrupted all over the city, and something had happened to the pedestrians. Some of them were running and the others moved along in a daze or merely stood silently in the center of the sidewalk. Faces had lost their usual mask of immobility. Some people laughed and others wept. Over in the grass of the University campus, a number of couples lay locked in close embrace, oblivious of still other couples who were fighting furiously. Joe Satterlee blinked at what he saw and drove on.

  At 3:02 he drove up to the Administration Building. A burly man stood on the curb, doing a little dance of impatience. He looked as though he wanted either a taxi or a washroom, but fast.

  “Pardon me,” Satterlee said. “Is Dean Hanson’s office in this building?”

  “I’m Hanson,” the burly man snapped.

  “My name’s Satterlee, I’m with the Daily Express-”

  “Good Lord, do they know already?”

  “Know what?”

  “Never mind.” Dean Hanson shook his head. “Can’t talk to you now. Got to find a cab.
I suppose I’ll never get to the airport.”

  “Leaving town?”

  “No. I’ve got to get my hands on Doctor Lowenquist. He’s at the bottom of all this--”

  Satterlee opened the door. “Come on, get in,” he said. “I’ll drive you to the airport. We can talk on the way.”

  A wind came out of the west and the sun disappeared to cower behind a cloud.

  “Storm coming up,” Dean Hanson muttered. “That damned fool better land before it hits.”

  “Lowenquist,” Satterlee said. “Isn’t he head of the School of Dentistry?”

  “That’s right,” Hanson sighed. “All this nonsense about mad scientists is bad enough, but a mad dentist--”

  “What did he do?”