“Were there any children, Daddy?”
He tousled her sandy hair and laughed. “No, because there are no mommies up there yet. Someday, maybe.”
“They’ve been talking about colonization again?” Sara asked.
“They’re always talking about it. Someday they’ll do it.”
“Could you see us, at night?”
He nodded. “I watched Earth rise over the dome, just the way we watch the moon from here. It’s quite a sight. I have some pictures.”
“Tell us about the other planets, Daddy!”
“Well, we made several exploratory flights—orbiting Mars but not landing. That was the longest trip, of course, even with the new cosmic ships.”
Sara nodded, her hands clutching his as if she would never let him go again. “We read about it in the papers.”
He opened his bag and took out gifts for them both—a doll and a piece of moon-crust for Sonia, then a sparkling necklace of rare jade for his wife. “Just a few little things,” he said. “I wish I could have brought back more, but of course there were weight restrictions in the spacecraft.”
“But it’s beautiful, Turk! I didn’t know they had such things on the moon! Tell us more about it. What did you do when you weren’t working?”
He leaned back in his chair, feeling good, and stared off into space as if still seeing those days and nights. “Oh, the times we had, the times we had. Drinking beer and singing with the fellows… And the sports events! The gravity’s so low that we could hop around like jackrabbits. We played basketball—imagine me playing basketball!”
“But you’re glad to be home?”
He nodded, holding her very close. “I’m glad to be home. A year out there is long enough. Let someone else do it now.”
She twisted free and rose to pour more coffee. “I’d better get dinner started. Some magazine writer is coming to interview you tonight.”
“What?”
“A writer from CENTURY 21. I knew you’d want to talk to him.”
“Sure.”
“Maybe they’ll even use your picture. He said he’d been interviewing all the men when they returned from the moon. He’s going to do some sort of story for the magazine.”
“What time’s he coming?”
“Oh, around eight.”
Turkmen spent the time until dinner playing with Sonia, carrying her on his broad shoulders, fascinating her with more stories of the way it was on the moon, where men worked to extend the frontiers of space. Then he strolled around the house and yard, getting the feel of it once again, settling in for the month-long leave they had granted him. He read the evening newspaper off the teleprinter, and was surprised to see his picture featured with the local news. Only a few hundred men had thus far completed moon service, and he was still rare enough to be something of a hometown hero.
He thought about the magazine writer again, and while Sara and Sonia set the table for his homecoming feast he made a call on the satellite phone. Then he went in to dinner.
The writer, when he arrived, proved to be a young man of about Turkmen’s own age. His name was George Faze, and he’d brought a pocket recorder with him to take down the interview. He seemed friendly enough, and smiled at Sara and Sonia, but there was something in his eyes that Turkmen didn’t like.
“It’s quite a life out there,” Faze said, setting out his recording equipment.
“It’s a good life, a man’s life. The sort of life frontiersmen had a hundred years ago, I suppose.”
Sara sat with them for a time, listening to Turkmen’s stories with a glow of prideful pleasure. Then at last she went off reluctantly to put Sonia to bed. “A fine family,” the writer commented. “You must have missed them.”
“I did. I missed everything about Earth, with its green hills and snowy winters and I guess especially the people. But we had some great times up there. I remember the night we returned from orbiting Mars. They had a celebration, as they often did, and some of us got roaring drunk. We were bouncing all over the lunar landscape in our suits.” He went on, telling and retelling the stories that Georg Faze had come to hear. After nearly an hour, Sara brought them coffee and then went up to bed.
“I’ve talked to many of the others,” Faze said. “They’re just as enthusiastic. Would you go back again?”
Turkmen thought about that. “I think so. Briefly. I’d like to take my wife and daughter, so they could see it all, too. It’s such a beautiful place.”
Faze sat for a moment staring at his recorder. Then he suddenly switched it off and turned to face Turkmen. “I’ve interviewed eighty-four men so far, Mr. Turkmen. Eighty-four men who’d completed one year of moon service. They all tell the same stories.”
Turkmen smiled. “We all liked it very much.”
“You don’t understand what I’m saying, Mr. Turkmen. The things, many of them, that happened to you—well, they’re the same things that happened to other people.”
“We were all there together.”
“Some of these men were there years ago. Am I to believe that every few years a group of men gets drunk on the moon in exactly the same manner?”
Turkmen sat up a bit straighter. “What are you driving at?”
“I’ll tell you. Back in 1970, when the United States and Russia joined forces to reach the moon, something changed. Both nations insisted on a sort of subtle censorship that we hadn’t known before. Oh, plenty of news was released, but it all came from government handouts rather than on-the-spot reporting. Each nation blamed the other for the restrictions, and unfortunately nobody complained very much.”
“What’s this got to do with me?” Turkmen asked.
“I’ve been working on this story for two years, and I think I’m about ready to break it. A story that will shock the world.” He leaned closer, staring into Turkmen’s quiet eyes. “I don’t think you were ever on the moon, Mr. Turkmen. I don’t think anyone ever reached the moon. You’ve spent the past year at a secret base in the Ural Mountains, being indoctrinated—or brainwashed—with this moon story.”
“That’s insane.”
“I have evidence.”
“Why would the government do anything like that?”
“Because they’d spent billions of dollars to reach the moon and failed. Because they couldn’t admit to failure. Because during the past generation a fantastic hoax has grown to mammoth proportions here on Earth. Fake news, fake photographs, everything fake!”
“You’re crazy.”
“Am I? We’ll see what our readers think, especially about that secret base in the Ural Mountains.”
“You’re really going to print that?”
Faze pocketed his recorder. “I am. It’s time the world knew that no one ever reached the moon or any other planet. Goodnight, Mr. Turkmen.”
Turkmen watched him leave, then walked to the window to follow his progress down the street. The writer was two houses away when the dark minicar drew abreast of him and two men jumped out. There was hardly any struggle. In the darkness, none of the neighbors noticed.
Turkmen sighed and went upstairs to bed. Sonia was still awake, and she called to him for a drink of water. When he brought it, she said, “Daddy, tell me some more stories about what it was like on the moon. Please, Daddy, please!”
He sat down on the edge of her bed, and ran his hand through her sandy hair. “It was wonderful, dear, just wonderful. You wouldn’t believe the times we had….”
ABOUT “GOD OF THE PLAYBACK”
Edward Hoch was a devoted Catholic, rarely missing a Sunday Mass. He also had the wisdom to affectionately question and challenge the traditions and beliefs of the Church. He was able to criticize what he saw as hypocrisy, and still admit to the power and beauty of honest prayer. “God of the Playback” is a very
different story from “The Wolfram Hunters,” but the two stories share the themes of culture clash and religion in transition.
First appeared in Gods for Tomorrow, edited by Hans Stefan Santesson, Award Books, 1967. It was published under the name Stephen Dentinger, and written specifically for that anthology.
GOD OF THE PLAYBACK
The offices of Automated Prayers Ltd. occupied the entire 107th floor of the World Trade Tower. From his desk, Arthur Maize could look out through the tinted glass walls at the city that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was truly the age of the megalopolis, and he would have been born in no other. He was a man of the twenty-first century, the first century of true civilization.
Sometimes, like this day, when he would have to greet visiting religious leaders and explain the intricate operations of Automated Prayers Ltd., he might wish for a simpler, more primitive mode of existence. But that was only a passing mood. The speech he gave the visitors was always the same, the sales pitch never varied. It was almost like one of the company’s own taped products.
The desk buzzer sounded and his secretary’s voice came on. “Mr. Maize, the…the delegation from upper Amazon is here.”
“Fine. Send them in.”
He had expected perhaps a half dozen middle-aged men in dark business suits—typical ministers of the modern world. Instead, only two men entered his office. One, a stocky little Irish priest with ruddy complexion and a thinning halo of white hair around the fringes of his head; the other, an oddly-dressed man of somewhat younger appearance, who seemed ill at ease.
“I am Father O’Toole,” the priest said, beaming as he extended his hand. “I do want to thank you for your invitation. This is the closest to heaven Hugo and I have ever gotten.” The good Father beamed at the men through the tinted glass wall of the office.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Arthur Maize said, also extending his hand. “Somehow I’d expected there’d be more of you.”
“No, no. Only Hugo and me.” As if suddenly remembering the man at his side, the priest turned to perform the introductions. “This is Hugo Dowd. He is my chief liaison with the more primitive up-river tribes.”
“Glatameetya,” Hugo Dowd mumbled. He shifted his feet and glanced down at his hands, still seemingly uneasy.
“Primitive tribes!” Maize asked, turning back to the little priest. “But surely, Father O’Toole, the Amazon is civilized now!”
“Not all of it, not up-river, not by a long shot. We still carry on a missionary existence there much as we did fifty years ago.”
“Amazing!” Arthur Maize said. “Today, there are modern cities the size of Chicago even in central Africa. And the aborigines of Australia have also taken a long step toward civilization! I don’t know as I realized things were still primitive in your area.”
The priest smiled slightly. “They are still so primitive, as you say, because they wish to be so. The world is not all shuttle ships to the moon and 120-story buildings.”
“But this is the twenty-first century! Men do not live in jungle caves!”
“Not caves, Mr. Maize. Strongly built huts with mud-thatched roofs to turn away the tropical rains. We have not yet learned to control the weather either.”
“If they have no electricity, I suppose we would have to supply you with battery-operated models,” Maize mused. “Fortunately, we have a new lifetime alkaline battery that should serve perfectly.”
Father O’Toole smiled. “Hugo and I did not necessarily come to buy. We are in New York for a week to purchase certain equipment for the home base—and, in my case, to report to the superior of my order. We accepted your very kind invitation on an informative basis only.”
“And such it is! But certainly when you see what we have to offer you won’t go back to your jungle without a full line.”
“And just what are Automated Prayers, Mr. Maize?” the little priest asked.
“Ah!” Maize rubbed his hands together and motioned them both to be seated. Now he was in his element demonstrating the company’s product. He knew he could not debate the civilizations of this complex world, but when it came to selling the goods, he could best this balding cleric any day of the week. “This is our most popular home model—the 957. It can be attached to a religious painting or a blessed candle.”
Maize held the tiny box in his hand and pressed the contact button gently. The reel of tape began to turn silently, and a somber, solemn voice repeated “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” The prayer came at five-second intervals, droning on endlessly. Maize let it play for a full two minutes before he flipped it off.
“Is that all?” Father O’Toole asked, a puzzled frown on his brow.
“My dear Father, we have more than 2000 different models. For the home, especially a non-Christian home, we have one that repeats the single word ‘God.’ We even have a Buddhist model that repeats the phrase ‘Namu Amida Butsuh,’ which means something like ‘Praises to the Buddha.’ For churches and temples we have everything from simple hymns to complete hour-long Masses and other services. We have a magna-stereo unit that can exactly duplicate the sounds of the giant organ at Manhattan Cathedral.”
“But to what purpose?” the priest asked.
“Surely you are familiar with the prayer wheels of old Tibet. And even in the West there have been a number of books advocating something similar. There was The Way of the Pilgrim, and something by that man Salinger, sixty years ago.”
“But…but this prayer is on tape!” the priest insisted. “It is mere mechanics!”
“No more so than the Tibetan prayer wheels. You have been away from the world a long time, Father O’Toole. In our fast-paced existence there is little time for formal prayer. With our devices, even the busiest man can feel he is doing something to worship his own particular Supreme Being. Our Automated Prayer machines can be left playing day and night in the home or even at the office. They can be used in smaller churches where the minister or priest cannot always be present to conduct services personally. And best of all they can be used to instill in our young the importance of constant prayer.”
Arthur Maize next led the two men to the windowless recording studios then to the control rooms and finally to the sales offices on the floor below. “As you can see, it is a vast operation geared to the times, to the needs of today’s religious man. We have a plant on Long Island for turning out duplicate tapes in quantity, but a great deal of our work is done right here. We have an advisory council of leading churchmen to guide us and on occasion we have even received grants from the government to aid us.”
Father O’Toole was indeed impressed with the physical facilities of Automated Prayers Ltd. But he was deeply troubled, too. “My poor natives would not understand this. For all these years, I have stood before them in their villages, around their campfires—and, occasionally, in their rudimentary cities—preaching faith in the Lord, with myself as a representative of the Lord. I am vain enough, Mr. Maize, to believe that no automated device can replace me in caring for these people.”
Arthur Maize blinked his eyes and stood firm. He’d met ones like this priest before but not in a good many years. “If you will take the time to think about it for a moment, Father, you will be aware of the positive advantages in our system.”
“I am interested only in souls,” the priest replied. “And I do not think souls can be saved by a little black box playing endless prayers like some demented juke box.”
Arthur Maize threw up his hands in mock resignation and he turned to the tall, silent figure of Hugo Dowd. “What’s your opinion of all this, Mr. Dowd?”
“I…don’t know.”
“Well, the very least you can do is take one of my units back to the Amazon with you, on a trial basis. After all, we sold 500 of them in Africa last year. Do you want to seem more backward than you actually are?”
Father O’Toole smiled. “The Mass is said in the language of the people. The hymns are in the native tongue. I doubt if even your extensive library is prepared to solve this problem.”
Arthur Maize spent the next thirty minutes going through the inventory, feeding code numbers into the blinking mouth of a chrome-plated computer and then cursing silently at the negative responses that appeared after each question. Finally, he admitted, “You’re correct. We have nothing in stock on the peculiar tongues of the upper Amazon. Our machines simply refuse to accept the fact that an uncivilized corner of the world still remains. You know there have even been small cities on Antarctica for the past decade.”
“I know,” Father O’Toole said. “I think now we must be going.”
“Wait! Surely you could assist us in preparing the correct tape!”
The little priest smiled. “I have neither the time nor the inclination. Such devices would never be used among my people.”
“But surely you owe it to those people to leave us some record of their liturgy, even if it is never used. The upper Amazon is the only gap in our files!”
Father O’Toole shook his head. “I must return to my mission in a few days, and I have much to do. There is no way I can help.”
Arthur Maize frowned for a moment, then recovered himself. “But Hugo can stay here! Surely he knows the liturgy. Surely he knows the language. And, surely, you could spare him for ten days or two weeks.”
Hugo Dowd shifted uneasily. “I’ve never been in such a big city. I’m not too comfortable here.”
“You would be paid well,” Maize insisted. “And you would be doing your people a great service.”
Hugo Dowd looked to the priest for help. “Father?”
“It is up to you, Hugo. We could spare you if you wanted to remain here for a time. But I repeat, Mr. Maize, we would not be purchasing any of your devices.”
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