Player Piano

by Kurt Vonnegut

  Through the war, and through the postwar years to the present, EPICAC's nervous system had been extended outward through Carlsbad Caverns--intelligence bought by the foot and pound and kilowatt. With each addition, a new, unique individual had been born, and now Halyard, the Shah, and Khashdrahr were arriving at the bunting-covered platform, where the President of the United States of America, Jonathan Lynn, would dedicate to a happier, more efficient tomorrow, EPICAC XIV.

  The trio sat down on folding chairs and waited quietly with the rest of the distinguished company. Whenever there was a break in the group's whispering, EPICAC's hummings and clickings could be heard--the sounds attendant to the flow of electrons, now augmenting one another, now blocking, shuttling through a maze of electromagnetic crises to a condition that was translatable from electrical qualities and quantities to a high grade of truth.

  EPICAC XIV, though undedicated, was already at work, deciding how many refrigerators, how many lamps, how many turbine-generators, how many hub caps, how many dinner plates, how many door knobs, how many rubber heels, how many television sets, how many pinochle decks--how many everything America and her customers could have and how much they would cost. And it was EPICAC XIV who would decide for the coming years how many engineers and managers and research men and civil servants, and of what skills, would be needed in order to deliver the goods; and what I.Q. and aptitude levels would separate the useful men from the useless ones, and how many Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps men and how many soldiers could be supported at what pay level and where, and ...

  "Ladies and Gentlemen," said the television announcer, "the President of the United States."

  The electric car pulled up to the platform, and President Jonathan Lynn, born Alfred Planck, stood and showed his white teeth and frank gray eyes, squared his broad shoulders, and ran his strong, tanned hands through his curly hair.

  The television cameras dollied and panned about him like curious, friendly dinosaurs, sniffing and peering. Lynn was boyish, tall, beautiful, and disarming, and, Halyard thought bitterly, he had gone directly from a three-hour television program to the White House.

  "Is this man the spiritual leader of the American people?" asked Khashdrahr.

  Halyard explained the separation of Church and State, and met, as he had expected to meet, with the Shah's usual disbelief and intimations that he, Halyard, hadn't understood the question at all.

  The President, with an endearing, adolescent combination of brashness and shyness, and with the barest trace of a Western drawl, was now reading aloud a speech someone had written about EPICAC XIV. He made it clear that he wasn't any scientist, but just plain folks, standing here, humble before this great new wonder of the world, and that he was here because American plain folks had chosen him to represent them at occasions like this, and that, looking at this modern miracle, he was overcome with a feeling of deep reverence and humility and gratitude ...

  Halyard yawned, and was annoyed to think that Lynn, who had just read "order out of chaos" as "order out of koze," made three times as much money as he did. Lynn, or, as Halyard preferred to think of him, Planck, hadn't even finished high school, and Halyard had known smarter Irish setters. Yet, here the son-of-a-bitch was, elected to more than a hundred thousand bucks a year!

  "You mean to say that this man governs without respect to the people's spiritual destinies?" whispered Khashdrahr.

  "He has no religious duties, except very general ones, token ones," said Halyard, and then he started wondering just what the hell Lynn did do. EPICAC XIV and the National Industrial, Commercial, Communications, Foodstuffs, and Resources Board did all the planning, did all the heavy thinking. And the personnel machines saw to it that all governmental jobs of any consequence were filled by top-notch civil servants. The more Halyard thought about Lynn's fat pay check, the madder he got, because all the gorgeous dummy had to do was read whatever was handed to him on state occasions: to be suitably awed and reverent, as he said, for all the ordinary, stupid people who'd elected him to office, to run wisdom from somewhere else through that resonant voicebox and between those even, pearly choppers.

  And Halyard suddenly realized that, just as religion and government had been split into disparate entities centuries before, now, thanks to the machines, politics and government lived side by side, but touched almost nowhere. He stared at President Jonathan Lynn and imagined with horror what the country must have been like when, as today, any damn fool little American boy might grow up to be President, but when the President had had to actually run the country!

  President Lynn was explaining what EPICAC XIV would do for the millions of plain folks, and Khashdrahr was translating for the Shah. Lynn declared that EPICAC XIV was, in effect, the greatest individual in history, that the wisest man that had ever lived was to EPICAC XIV as a worm was to that wisest man.

  For the first time the Shah of Bratpuhr seemed really impressed, even startled. He hadn't thought much of EPICAC XIV's physical size, but the comparison of the worm and the wise man struck home. He looked about himself apprehensively, as though the tubes and meters on all sides were watching every move.

  The speech was over, and the applause was dying, and Doctor Halyard brought the Shah to meet the President, and the television cameras nuzzled about them.

  "The President is now shaking hands with the Shah of Bratpuhr," said the announcer. "Perhaps the Shah will give us the fresh impressions of a visitor from another part of the world, from another way of life."

  "Allasan Khabou pillan?" said the Shah uncertainly.

  "He wonders if he might ask a question," said Khashdrahr.

  "Sure, you bet," said the President engagingly. "If I don't know the answers, I can get them for you."

  Unexpectedly, the Shah turned his back to the President and walked alone, slowly, to a deserted part of the platform.

  "Wha'd I do wrong?" said Lynn.

  "Ssssh!" said Khashdrahr fiercely, and he placed himself, like a guard, between the puzzled crowd and the Shah.

  The Shah dropped to his knees on the platform and raised his hands over his head. The small, brown man suddenly seemed to fill the entire cavern with his mysterious, radiant dignity, alone there on the platform, communing with a presence no one else could sense.

  "We seem to be witnessing some sort of religious rite," said the announcer.

  "Can't you keep your big mouth shut for five seconds?" said Halyard.

  "Quiet!" said Khashdrahr.

  The Shah turned to a glowing bank of EPICAC's tubes and cried in a piping singsong voice:

  "Allakahi baku billa,

  Moumi a fella nam;

  Serani assu tilla,

  Touri serin a sam."

  "The crazy bastard's talking to the machine," whispered Lynn.

  "Ssssh!" said Halyard, strangely moved by the scene.

  "Siki?" cried the Shah. He cocked his head, listening. "Siki?" The word echoed and died--lonely, lost.

  "Mmmmmm," said EPICAC softly. "Dit, dit. Mmmmm. Dit."

  The Shah sighed and stood, and shook his head sadly, terribly let down. "Nibo," he murmured. "Nibo."

  "What's he say?" said the President.

  " 'Nibo'--'nothing.' He asked the machine a question, and the machine didn't answer," said Halyard. "Nibo."

  "Nuttiest thing I ever heard of," said the President. "You have to punch out the questions on that thingamajig, and the answers come out on tape from the whatchamacallits. You can't just talk to it." A doubt crossed his fine face. "I mean, you can't, can you?"

  "No sir," said the chief engineer of the project. "As you say, not without the thingamajigs and whatchamacallits."

  "What'd he say?" said Lynn, catching Khashdrahr's sleeve.

  "An ancient riddle," said Khashdrahr, and it was plain that he didn't want to go on, that something sacred was involved. But he was also a polite man, and the inquiring eyes of the crowd demanded more of an explanation. "Our people believe," he said shyly, "that a great, all-wise god will c
ome among us one day, and we shall know him, for he shall be able to answer the riddle, which EPICAC could not answer. When he comes," said Khashdrahr simply, "there will be no more suffering on earth."

  "All-wise god, eh?" said Lynn. He licked his lips and patted down his unruly forelock. "How's the riddle go?"

  Khashdrahr recited:

  "Silver bells shall light my way,

  And nine times nine maidens fill my day,

  And mountain lakes will sink from sight,

  And tigers' teeth will fill the night."

  President Lynn squinted at the cavern roof thoughtfully. "Mmm. Silver bells, eh?" He shook his head. "That's a stinker, you know? A real stinker. I give up."

  "I'm not surprised," said Khashdrahr. "I'm not surprised. I expect you do."

  Halyard helped the Shah, who seemed to have been aged and exhausted by the emotional ordeal, into the electric car.

  As they rode to the foot of the elevator, the Shah came back to life somewhat and curled his lip at the array of electronics about them. "Baku!" he said.

  "That's a new one on me," said Halyard to Khashdrahr, feeling warmly toward the little interpreter, who had squared away Jonathan Lynn so beautifully. "What's Baku?"

  "Little mud and straw figures made by the Surrasi, a small infidel tribe in the Shah's land."

  "This looks like mud and straw to him?"

  "He was using it in the broader sense, I think, of false god."

  "Um," said Halyard. "Well, how are the Surrasi doing?"

  "They all died of cholera last spring." He added after a moment, "Of course." He shrugged, as though to ask what else people like that could possibly expect. "Baku."

  12

  THE KRONER HOME, just outside Albany, was a Victorian mansion, perfectly restored and maintained down to the filigree along the eaves, and the iron spikes along the roof peak. The archprophet of efficiency, Kroner, preferred it to the gracile, wipe-clean-with-a-damp-cloth steel and glass machines almost all of the engineers and managers lived in. Though Kroner had never accounted for his having bought the place--beyond saying that he liked lots of room--it was so in keeping with him that no one gave the anachronism more than passing thought.

  A portrait painter had sensed the rightness of the setting, with no clues other than Kroner's face. The painter had been commissioned to do portraits of all the district managers. He did them from photographs, since the managers were too busy--or prudently claimed to be--to sit. Intuitively, the painter had depicted Kroner in a red plush chair, with a massive wedding ring prominently displayed, and with a background of heavy velvet drapes.

  The mansion was one more affirmation of Kroner's belief that nothing of value changed; that what was once true is always true; that truths were few and simple; and that a man needed no knowledge beyond these truths to deal wisely and justly with any problem whatsoever.

  "Come in," rumbled Kroner gently, answering the door himself. He seemed to fill the whole house with his slow strength and rock-bound calm. He was as informal as he ever became, having replaced his double-breasted suit coat with a single-breasted one of a slightly lighter shade and with suede patches at the elbows. The coat, he explained to visitors, was something his wife had given him years ago, something which he'd only recently mustered nerve enough to wear.

  "I love your house more every time I see it," said Anita.

  "You must tell Janice that." Janice was Mrs. Kroner, who smiled sweetly from the living room. She was a fat repository of truisms, adages, and homilies, and was usually addressed by the young engineers and managers as "Mom."

  Mom, Paul recalled, had never liked that Finnerty boy, who would never call her Mom nor confide in her. Once, after she'd prodded him to unburden himself and feel better, he'd rather testily told her that he'd already fled one mother. Paul she liked, because Paul, as a youngster, had confided in her now and then. He would never do it again, but his demeanor before her conveyed that his failure to confide recently wasn't due to revulsion, but to a lack of problems.

  "Hello, Mom," said Paul.

  "Hello, Mom," said Anita.

  "You children take a load off your feet," said Mom. "Now just tell me all about yourselves."

  "Well, we've redone the kitchen," said Anita.

  Mom was thrilled, eager for details.

  Kroner hung his huge head, as though listening intently to the small talk, or, more likely, Paul thought, counting away the seconds before it would be polite to separate the men and women--a custom of the house.

  As Anita paused for breath, Kroner stood, beamed, and suggested that Paul come into his study to see the guns. It was the same gambit every time--the men were to see the guns. Years ago, Anita had made the mistake of saying she was interested in guns, too. Kroner had politely told her that his weren't the kind women liked.

  Mom's response was always the same, too: "Oh guns--I hate them. I can't see why men want to go around shooting sweet little animals."

  The fact was, Kroner never fired his guns. His pleasure seemed to be in owning and handling them. He also used them for props, to give an air of informality to his man-to-man talks. He announced raises and promotions, demotions and firings, and praised or warned, always in seemingly casual asides made while swabbing a bore.

  Paul followed him into the dark-paneled study, and waited for him to choose his weapon from the gunrack that filled one wall. Kroner ran his index finger along the collection, like a stick along a picket fence. It had been a matter of speculation among Kroner's underlings as to whether there was any significance in the guns he chose for a particular discussion. For a while the rumor was current that shotguns were bad news, rifles were good news. But it hadn't withstood the test of time. Kroner finally chose a ten-gauge shotgun, broke open the breach, and squinted through the bore at a streetlight outside.

  "Wouldn't dare shoot modern ammunition in this one," said Kroner. "Twist barrel--thing'd go all to pieces. But look at that inlay work, Paul."

  "Beautiful. Priceless."

  "Some man spent maybe two years on it. Time didn't mean anything in those days. The industrial dark ages, Paul."

  "Yessir."

  He selected a cleaning rod and lined up on his desk top a can of oil, a jar of grease, and several cloth patches. "Got to keep after a bore, or it'll pit on you just like that." He snapped his fingers. He oiled a patch, twisted it about the tip of the cleaning rod. "Especially in this climate."

  "Yessir." Paul started to light a cigarette, and then remembered Anita's warning in the outline.

  Kroner drove the cleaning rod downward. "Where's Ed Finnerty, by the way?"

  "Don't know, sir."

  "Police are looking for him."

  "Really?"

  Kroner slid the patch back and forth and didn't look at Paul. "Uh-huh. Now that he's out of a job, he's got to register with the police, and he hasn't."

  "I left him downtown in Homestead last night."

  "I know that. I thought maybe you knew where he went."

  Kroner had a habit of saying he already knew what he'd just been told. Paul was sure the old man didn't really know anything about the night before. "I haven't any idea." He didn't want to make trouble for anyone. Let the police find out that Finnerty was with Lasher, if they could.

  "Umm hmmm. See that pit right there?" He held the muzzle of the gun a few inches from Paul's face and pointed out a tiny flaw. "That's what happens if you let a bore go for even a month. They'll run right away with you."

  "Yessir."

  "He isn't to be trusted any more, Paul. He isn't right in his head, and it wouldn't do to take chances with him, would it?"

  "Nossir."

  Kroner dabbed at the pit with the corner of a patch. "I supposed you saw it that way. That's why it's a little difficult for me to understand why you let him wander around the plant unescorted."

  Paul reddened. No words came.

  "Or why you'd let him have your gun. He isn't authorized for firearms any more, you know. Yet they tell me they
found your pistol covered with his fingerprints."

  Before Paul could order his thoughts, Kroner clapped him on his knee and laughed like Santa Claus. "I'm so sure you've got a good explanation, I don't even want to hear it. Got a lot of faith in you, my boy. Don't want to see you get into any trouble. Now that your father's gone, I feel it's sort of up to me to watch out for you."

  "That's nice of you, sir."

  Kroner turned his back to Paul, assumed a ready stance with the shotgun, and picked off an imaginary bird flushed from behind the desk. "Kaplowie!" He ejected an imaginary shell. "These are dangerous times--more dangerous than you'd suspect from the surface. Kaplowie! But it's also the Golden Age, isn't it, Paul?"

  Paul nodded.

  Kroner turned to look at him. "I said, isn't this the Golden Age?"

  "Yessir. I nodded."

  "Pull!" said Kroner, apparently imagining clay pigeons now. "Kaboom! There have always been doubters, criers of doom, stoppers of progress."

  "Yessir. About Finnerty and the pistol, I--"

  "Behind us now, forgotten," said Kroner impatiently. "The slate is clean. As I was about to say, look where we are now, because men went right ahead and took forward steps with stout hearts, in spite of the people telling them not to."