Earth Unaware

1

Jerry, in the control booth, was making stretching motions. Ed Wonder looked up at the studio clock. They were running long.

He said to the guest, “To go back a bit. You used a couple of terms there that most of us haven’t been checked out on, I’m sure.” He looked down at the pad upon which he scribbled notes as the program continued. “Palin… palin… something or other.”

“Palingenesis,” Reinhold Miller said with only the slightest trace of condescension.

“That’s right. And metempsychosis. Did I get that one?”

“That is correct. Metempsychosis. The passage of the soul from one body to another. From the Latin, which in turn was from the Greek. In all modesty I would still suppose that I am the world’s outstanding authority on palingenesis and metempsychosis.”

Ed Wonder said, “You defined metempsychosis for us; just what is palingenesis?”

“It means rebirth, regeneration, the doctrine of transmigration of souls.”

“Well, how does that differ from metempsychosis?”

“I am afraid that time limitations prevent my going into the matter in the detail that would be necessary completely to clarify the subject.”

“That’s too bad. Well, here’s another item I wanted to ask about. You say you’ve been reincarnated three times. You were first born as Alexander, the Macedonian who conquered the Persian empire. You described how you died of fever after the big binge in Babylon, and then your, ah, soul was transmigrated into the newly born body of Hannibal, the Carthaginian who later nearly, but not quite, defeated Rome. After Hannibal committed suicide by taking poison, you woke up again in the body of Marshal Ney, Napoleon’s right hand man.”

“That is all correct.”

“What I wondered about is where your, ah, soul was in-between. If my andent history isn’t all kooked up, Alexander was something like four hundred years or so B.C. Hannibal led his elephants over the Alps perhaps a hundred and fifty years later. Don’t hold me to those dates, folks, I was the top champ at cutting classes when it came to ancient history. Now, let’s see, Marshal Ney must have been born in the 18th Century if he fought with Napoleon. That’s a pretty long hop from your first reincarnation to your second.”

Reinhold Miller said stiffly, “There is no time in death.”

“How was that again?”

“One feels no sense of lapse between lives. When I was executed in my incarnation as Michel Ney, there seemed a sudden flash of light and pain, and then I was conscious immediately of being newly born into the world as a crying child.”

Ed Wonder thoughtfully touched the tip of his nose with his forefinger, then consciously took it away. He was going to have to kill that mannerism if he ever got the program onto television, it looked kooky.

He said, “Well, there was one other thing, Mr. Miller. Don’t you think it’s somewhat of a coincidence that in all three of your earlier, ah, incarnations, you were one of the greatest military geniuses the world has ever seen?”

“Perhaps mine is a soul of destiny.”

“What did you tell us your present occupation is, Mr. Miller?”

“I am an accountant.”

Ed Wonder looked down at his pad. “Oh yes. Here we are. Assistant accountant at the Brisby Department Store, in Brisby, Pennsylvania. I thought practically all accounting was automated in these days of the Welfare State. Brisby must be a bit behind. But aren’t you somewhat surprised that your latest incarnation wasn’t Douglas MacArthur, or Eisenhower, or possibly Viscount Montgomery? You know, just to keep it consistent.”

“It is not mine to question. The eternal spirit moves in mysterious ways.”

“Well, look. What I meant was that two or three times before we’ve had reincarnations on the program. And what’s always surprised me about people who, ah, claim to be born again, is that it’s never the gardener who worked the swing shift in Tamerlane’s melon patch, but always Tamerlane himself. It’s never a chimney sweep in Moscow, in the year 1175, but Catherine the Great. How come you folks who get reincarnated were always big shots in the former life?”

Miller reacted to that, as he did with everything, with calm dignity and an appealing sincerity which, Ed decided, the twitch element listening in were probably swallowing like crazy.

“I might refer you to the case of Bridey Murphy.”

“Touché,” Ed said jovially. “You got me there. Folks, you’ll remember way back in 1956 or so when the country was all interested in a lady out Colorado way who used to go into hypnotic trances and recall a former life in which she was a simple Irish colleen in the late 18th Century.”

His phone clicked and he took it up.

Dolly said, “Professor Dee is on, Little Ed. He wants to ask the guest some questions.”

Ed Wonder hung up and made a signal to Jerry in the engineer’s booth.

He said, “Folks, I’ve just had a call from Professor Varley Dee. You old hands remember the professor—teaches anthropology over at the university. We’ve had him on as a panelist half a dozen times over. The professor is one of the great sceptics of all time. Folks, he just don’t buy nothin’. Professor Dee wants to ask our honored guest of the evening, Mr. Reinhold Miller, a few questions, and if Mr. Miller doesn’t mind, we’ll just switch on the old beeper phone which is a method by which you listeners can hear both ends of the conversation. All right, Mr. Miller?”

“I am perfectly willing to answer any questions whatsoever.”

“Fine. Well, Professor?”

Varley Dee’s cranky voice crisped in. “You say you were once Alexander the Great. If that is so, you must clearly remember the battle of Issus, the most famous of Alexander’s victories.”

“I remember it as though it happened yesterday.”

“I’m sure you do,” Dee said sarcastically: “Now then, during the battle where was Ptolemy?”

“Who?”

“Ptolemy, Ptolemy. Later the founder of the Macedonian dynasty in Egypt and the ancestor of Cleopatra.”

“Oh.” Reinhold Miller cleared his throat. “Your pronunciation is faulty. He…”

“I studied Ancient Greek for eight years,” Professor Dee snapped.

“…fought on the left flank.”

“He did not!” Dee said. “He was one of the companions and fought side by side with Alexander, Black Clitus and the rest of…”

“Nonsense,” Miller said, snap in his voice. “You picked that up in some silly history book. I know where he fought. Who could know better? I was there.”

Jerry was making circular motions to Ed Wonder from the control booth. Wind it up.

Ed began to cut in, but Dee continued over the beeper phone, “All right, I’ll admit I wasn’t there. However, some of those historians you scorn—including Ptolemy himself, who wrote an account—were there. But’s here’s another question. Still sticking to Ptolemy. What was his surname?”

Miller’s face worked.

“Come, come,” the professor urged. “He was one of Alexander’s closest friends.”

Ed reluctantly came to the rescue. He said, “Gentlemen, we’re going to have to call time. Sorry, perhaps we can get together on another occasion. Thank you…”

“His surname was Soter” Professor Dee crowed. “As Alex…” but at that point Jerry killed the beeper phone contact.

“…Thank you, Professor Dee. And especially thank you, Mr. Reinhold Miller, who joined us tonight to explain his reincarnation three times over. This is station WAN, the Voice of the Hudson Valley, coming to you from Kingsburg, New York. You have been listening to Edward Wonder’s Far Out Hour.” He cued the engineer by saying, “Let the music go round and round, Jerry.”

The red light flickered off, indicating the studio was no longer hot. Ed Wonder leaned back in his chair and shifted his shoulders in an elaborate stretch. He tensed up, on mike, particularly on these long programs in which he had to carry most of the dialogue.

Reinhold Miller said, “You mentioned back there the possibility of my appearing again on the program. I’d be glad…”

“I’ll bet you would.” Ed Wonder yawned deliberately.

The other looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

Ed Wonder’s small briefcase was on the padded table before him. They padded studio tables so that nonpro guests couldn’t make unwanted noises to go out over the air by drumming fingernails or pencil points. He brought forth some papers and a checkbook. “Let’s see,” he said. “Your take was to be fifty bucks and expenses, right?”

“That was the agreement. Look here…”

Ed Wonder had brought forth his pen. “No, you look here, Miller. We get a lot of kooky people on this program. Folks who tell about seeing little green men coming out of flying saucers, folks who claim they’re clairvoyants, mediums, fortunetellers, necromancers, witches. We even had a guy thought he was a werewolf once.” He was writing rapidly, even as he spoke. “But you know something? Most of them are sincere. For all I know, some of them might even be right. We’ve got open minds on this program.”

“I… I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Wonder.”

“I think you do. I thought when I offered to pay your expenses and fifty dollars for your time, you were a man—mistaken or not—who really believed he had lived in earlier incarnations.” Ed Wonder grunted deprecation. “Anybody can read up a bit on historical characters like Alexander, Hannibal and Ney.”

The other’s lips were pale and thin. “You can’t talk to me that way. I came here in good faith.”

“And to pick up a quick fifty bucks. The proof of the pudding, Miller. You weren’t able to answer Professor Dee’s questions. As a historian he had read more on Alexander and his men than you had.”

“See here, Mr. Wonder, I admit I’ve read a great deal about the men whose bodies I formerly occupied. I admit also that some details of my earlier incarnations I have forgotten. That could happen to anyone. Surely there are details in your own life that you have forgotten. That doesn’t…”

The radio man was yawning, even as he waved the check in the air to dry it. “Here’s your travel expenses. And now I’ll write you a separate check for your loot.”

Reinhold Miller flushed angrily. “I’ll take the expense money, because I need it. But if you think I’m a fake, Mr. Miller, you can keep the fifty.”

“That’s up to you. Please sign this receipt for total compensation.”

Rheinhold Miller grabbed the pen, signed, took up the small check, turned sharply on his heel and left through the sound padded door to the hall. Ed Wonder looked after him calculatingly for a moment, then stuffed his things back into the briefcase.

Jerry was motioning to him from the control room, and he arose and sauntered in, lighting a cigarette.

Ed Wonder said, “Jerry, where in the devil do you get your clothes, from the Salvation Army? You make the program look crumby. And what do you smoke in that prehistoric pipe, soft coal?”

The engineer grunted around the stem of the pipe in question, then said, “This isn’t TV. Even if it were, I wouldn’t be on camera. Did you do him out of his money, Little Ed?”

“What?”

“Alexander the Great, in there.”

“He was a fake.”

“You know, he might be missing a few marbles but he believed in it. He thought he was telling the truth.”

“That’s not the way I received it. This program’s on a limited budget, Jerry.”

“Yeah. And if there’s anything left over at the end of the month, it goes into your pocket. You get a flat sum for the package.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Not a thing. I love to watch you operate. They can automate nine people out of ten out of work, but the eternal chisler we will always have with us.”

Ed Wonder flushed. “I suggest you keep your nose out of my business if you want to stay out of trouble.”

Jerry took his pipe from his mouth and grunted humor.

“Trouble! From you, Little Ed? What kind of trouble could you cause anybody?” He examined the knuckles of his right hand, reflectively.”—that a smash in that cute little mustache wouldn’t cure.”

The other took a quick half step back. He gathered himself and said nastily, “Is all this what you called me in here for?”

“Fatso came in while you were on mike. He wants to see you.”

“Mulligan? What’s he doing here this time of night?”

Ed Wonder turned and left before waiting for an answer. There was a small hall immediately outside the soundproofed door which opened into the control room. There were two other similar doors, one of which opened into Studio Three which Ed Wonder had utilized for his late hour program and the other into the corridor beyond.

Ed walked down the corridor to the offices, coming up to Dolly’s desk before going on to his own to leave his briefcase. He pretended to flinch.

“Holy smokes, what’ve you done to your hair?”

She touched it. “Oh, do you like it, Little Ed? It’s the latest—latest from Italy. The Fantasy-mode.”

He shook his head, eyes closed in sorrow. “Do you think women’s hair will ever come back?” He dropped the bantering tone.

He went over to his own desk, put the briefcase in a drawer and locked it. He started toward Matthew Mulligan’s office, adjusting his bow tie. He paused before the door a moment, then knocked two careful raps.

The station head was seated behind his desk, listening to the Rock’n’Swing music which followed Ed Wonder’s show and looking as though it wasn’t helping his digestion.

“You wanted to see me, Mr. Mulligan?”

The older man looked him directly in the eye and blatted, “My country, may she always be right…” And then left it there.

Ed Wonder blinked. The other was evidently waiting for him to finish the quotation. His mind hurried it up. He said, “Ah… but my country, right or left.”

“…but my country, right or wrong.” Mulligan said accusingly, “I can see you’re not a member of the society.”

It came to Ed Wonder. The Stephen Decatur Society, an organization that considered the Birchers too far left. He had heard that Matthew Mulligan was a member.

“Well, no sir,” Ed said earnestly. “I was thinking of looking further into it, possibly joining up, but I’ve been awfully busy with the program. Have you thought any further of putting it on television, Mr. Mulligan?”

“No, I haven’t,” Mulligan growled. “Sit down. You make me nervous jittering around. I didn’t call you in to talk about your program, Little Ed, but while we’re on it I don’t mind admitting it’s not quite what I pictured when you sold me the idea. Sure, sure, you get some character who says he flew to the moon in a flying saucer, but how come you’ve never got anybody to show us a chunk of it he brought back, or something? And these fortunetellers. What we need on your program is somebody who predicts Number One, over in Moscow, will get knocked off next Tuesday, and, bingo, it happens. Something like that’d have a dozen sponsors bidding for your show.”

Ed Wonder wished he dared close his eyes in pain. Instead, he said hurriedly, “What was it you did call me in for, Mr. Mulligan?”

“Oh? Yeah, well, what’re you doing tomorrow night, Little Ed?”

“I’ve got a date. Tomorrow’s one of my free days, Mr. Mulligan.”

“Well, maybe you can take her along. See here, have you ever heard of some twitch named Ezekiel Joshua Tubber?”

“I don’t think so. A name like that I’d remember. I don’t think it’s possible to break this date.”

The studio chief ignored him. “He’s some kind of religious nut, or something. But the thing is, the society’s got a couple of letters and a phone call complaining about him, understand? Claim he’s subversive.”

“I thought you said he was a religious twitch.”

“Yeah, but subversive too. A lot of these reds hide out in the guise of religion. Like that archbishop over in England, whatever his name was. And some of these Jewish rabbis that’re always signing petitions against segregation. Anyway, at the last meeting of the chapter it was decided to investigate this Tubber. So I was given the assignment.”

Ed Wonder could see it coming. “This date…” he began hopefully.

“I don’t know anything about religious nuts, but you, with this program are all up on crackpots. So tomorrow night you can attend his meeting. Here’s the address, an empty lot over on Houston street. You can give a report at the next meeting of the chapter.”

“Look, Mr. Mulligan, I wouldn’t know a subversive if I found one under the bed.” He played his trump. “This date is with Helen.”

“Helen?”

“Helen Fontaine. Jensen Fontaine’s daughter.”

“Helen Fontaine! What would a classy, high stepping girl like Miss Fontaine see in…” He cut the question short with a burp, and pursed his heavy lips. “See here,” he said finally, “did you ever talk to Mr. Fontaine about your program, now that it’s been on a while?”

“He’s crazy for it,” Ed said quickly. “He was telling me so just the other night. We were sitting around having a couple of drinks together while I was waiting for Helen to finish dressing.”

“Oh, you were, eh?” The studio chief made facial motions as though he were chewing. “Well, see here. Mr. Fontaine is a member of the chapter, so is Helen, for that matter, even if she doesn’t come around much. Why don’t the two of you just take this tent meeting in for half an hour or so? That ought to be plenty.”

“A tent meeting!” she said, unbelievingly. “I thought it was the end when you wanted to take in that tea leaf reader’s convention but…”

“The Precognition Society,” Ed said unhappily. “And it was mainly crystalloscopy, not tea leaves.”

“…this takes the frosted malted. Whatever gave you the idea I’d be willing to go to a religious revival meeting in lieu of a date, Little Ed Wonder?”

He explained hastily. Told her he would have put Mulligan in his place, if it hadn’t been a Stephen Decatur Society project. Told her he’d thought she’d be hot to do a chore for the society. Told her they could cut it as short as she wanted. Told her he could spot a subversive in the first few moments of talk. Told her he was a commie spotter from way back. Told her he had denounced two of his schoolmates as undercover reds as early as third grade.

That last got to her and she made a moue at him. “All right, sharpy. But you’d better not let Daddy hear you being flippant like that. He takes the society seriously.”

Later, in the Volkshover, she said, “When are you going to get off those impossible hours, Little Ed? I thought the idea was to build your program up and finally switch it to TV on Sunday morning.”

Ed said, “Well, that’s what I thought, but for some reason old Fatso Mulligan can’t see it. He doesn’t realize how many people go for this kooky stuff. Why, most of the people in the country believe in one sort of far out idea or the other. It’s exactly that kind of twitch who spends half his life sitting in front of his idiot box.” He cleared his throat. “Now, if you could get your father to drop a hint…”

“Oh, Daddy’s not really concerned with the station,” she said disinterestedly, “just because he owns it. He owns a lot of things. What he’s really interested in is the society.”

They came to the empty acres on the outskirts of town which provided the room for a medium large tent which had been pitched almost in the exact center. It wasn’t until they had drifted closer that they saw the second tent behind.

“Oh, Mother,” Helen protested. “Does somebody live in that like—like gypsies?”

There weren’t many cars descended on the area that had evidently been chosen for parking. Ed sank the beetle parallel to the others and switched off the lights. “It looks as if they’re already under way,” he said.

Helen said, “When are you going to get a car, Little Ed? I feel like a cockroach crawling in and out of this thing.”

Under his breath, as he slid out from under the wheel, Ed muttered, “When I’m rich, honey, when I’m rich.”

He took her arm to lead her toward what was obviously the entrance of the larger of the two canvas shelters.

She said, “Remember, we’re going to go in there and leave again so quick they’ll think we’re some sort of blur.”

There was a small reception committee at the entrance, two middle-aged types and a girl. They didn’t exactly block the way, but it was simpler to stop a moment.

One of the middleaged ones twisted her face in what was probably a smile and said, “Dear ones, are you pilgrims on the path to Elysium?”

Ed thought about that for a moment before saying, “I don’t think so.”

Helen said, “I know darn well I’m not.”

Amusement came from a source unsuspected. The girl member of the reception committee laughed softly and said, “No, I’m afraid you aren’t, at least as yet.” She put a hand out. “I’m Nefertiti Tubber,” she told them. “Tonight’s Speaker of the Word is my father.”

“Not just tonight,” one of the others put in. “Ezekiel Joshua Tubber, is the Speaker of the Word. The guru of the path to Elysium.”

“Anyone can spread the word, Martha,” Nefertiti said softly.

“I’m losing track of this,” Helen said. “Let’s get in and see the big show.”

Ed Wonder had taken the girl’s proffered hand. It was both firm and soft in a disconcerting way.

The Tubber girl smiled after them as Ed Wonder followed Helen into the tent and to chairs spank down in the front row. He decided that Helen was feeling mischievous all right. He would have settled for the rear.

The meeting was already under way and for the time the speaker’s words didn’t get through to the newcomers. While helping Helen with her coat and getting settled on the somewhat rickety wooden folding chair, Ed Wonder kept mental fingers crossed. The score or so who made up the balance of the audience didn’t give the appearance of burn-’em-at-the-stake religious fanatics but still the last place Ed was in favor of starting a ruckus was a revival meeting.

Helen said, in a tone only one degree below a stage whisper, “With that beaver, he looks more like Abraham Lincoln than a preacher.”

Ed said, “Shhh. Let’s get a quick line on what he says.”

Somebody else in the audience said shhhhh too, and Helen swiveled in her chair to glare.

As a matter of fact, Ed decided, Helen’s description wasn’t as far off as all that. There was a Lincolnesque quality about the old boy up on the speaker’s stand, a transcendent beauty in the sheer ugliness of face. An infinite sadness.

He was saying, “…no matter how the system of representation or delegation of the governmental function is arranged, there is necessarily an alienation of part of the liberty and means of the citizen…”

Helen said from the side of her mouth, “What’s he wearing, a suit made out of burlap bags?” Ed pretended not to hear.

“…all parties, without exception, in so far as they seek for power, are varieties of absolutism.”

Helen caught that phrase and sang out, “Even the Communist Party?”

Tubber—Ed Wonder assumed this must be Ezekiel Joshua Tubber—paused in mid-thought and looked down at her gently. “Especially the communists, dear one. Communism fails to recognize that, though man is a social being and seeks equality, he also loves independence. Property, in fact, springs from man’s desire to free himself from the slavery of communism, the primitive form of society. But property, in its turn, goes to the extreme and violates equality and supports the acquisition of power by the privileged minority.”

Whether or not that satisfied Helen Fontaine, Ed didn’t know, but he was beginning to wonder what all this had to do with religion.

He whispered to Helen, “Whatever he is, he isn’t a red. Let’s go.”

“No, wait a minute. I want to hear more of what the old goat has to say. How did a skinny old duffer like him ever get to be father of that pretty, plump little girl out front? He looks like he’s eighty if he’s a day.”

Somebody back in the audience went shhhh again and somebody else said, “Please, dear one, we cannot hear the Speaker of the Word.”

Helen didn’t bother to turn this time, but for the moment held her peace, to Ed’s relief. He was beginning to be able to picture being thrown out of the assembly bodily, and if there were anything Ed Wonder hated, it was violence, particularly when it was directed at him. He brought his attention back to Tubber who seemed to be getting into the meat of his subject. “So it is that we proclaim the road to Elysium must be taken. Such has become our lust for possessions, our mad, desperate scramble for goods, for property, for material things, that we are making of this promised land granted by the All-Mother to our ancestors a veritable desert. The nation has already lost a third of the rich topsoil that it had when the Pilgrims landed. Consumption of oil has tripled since the end of the Second War, and although we possess but a seventh of the earth’s proved resources, in our madness we are consuming more than half of the world’s production. Once the world’s leading exporter of copper, we are now the leading importer, and our once tremendous reserves of lead and zinc are now so depleted that they are rapidly becoming uneconomic to work.

“But still the waste goes on. Still the demand for more and more consumption. Consume! Consume! they demand of us. Seek happiness in the desire for things. Consume! Consume! they tell us and endless millions are spent on the perverters of Madison Avenue so that our people will continue to demand, demand more things they need not. Why, dear ones, do you know that in this mad attempt to lure us into still greater consumption those who profit by this way of life spend five hundred dollars a year in packaging alone for every family in the nation. Five hundred dollars a year into what is largely waste! Why, dear ones, our brothers in such lands as India have a per capita income of but thirty-six dollars a year.”

He was, Ed Wonder decided, really beginning to get steamed up now. However, it still didn’t have much to do with religion. Other than an occasional reference to the All-Mother, whoever that was, and Tubber’s habit of calling his audience dear ones it sounded more like an attack on the affluent society than a quest for salvation.

Ed looked at Helen from the side of his eyes. He had an idea that the fineness was beginning to wear off her mischievous nature and she’d soon be bored with the tent meeting. He had an idea, too, that she was assimilating only every other sentence or so of Tubber’s diatribe, in spite of her scowl of concentration.

“…frivolous consumption. Why, we spend more for greeting cards than medical research. More on smoke, gambling and drinking than on education. More on watches and jewelry than on either basic scientific research or books…”

Ed began to whisper, “Look, this guy isn’t a subversive. Just a chronic malcontent. What do you say we take off?”

But Helen wasn’t having any. Her voice came clear and loud. “What are you moaning about, Dads? America has the greatest standard of living in the world. Nobody ever had it so good.”

Silence fell.

Not even the shushers to their rear broke the hush.

Somehow, the gentle-faced, sad-faced oldster who had been holding forth in a quiet persuasive voice in spite of the nature of his attack, seemed to grow several inches in height, put on twenty or more pounds in pure bulk. For a moment, inanely, Ed wondered if the wobbly speaker’s stand would hold this added weight.

He whispered to Helen, “Did you say Abe Lincoln? He looks more like John Brown about to free the slaves at Harper’s Ferry.”

Helen began to say something, but her voice was drowned in the rumble of thunder from Ezekiel Joshua Tubber.

“Standards of living, thou sayest! Is it standard of living that we must have a new vehicle every two or three years, whilst the old is discarded? Is it standard of living that a woman must needs own half a dozen bathing suits or think she is underprivileged? Is it standard of living that appliances are so constructed—planned obsolescence they call it—that it is all but impossible to get them home from the store before collapse? Indeed, we of the United States have used up in the past forty years more of the world’s resources than all the population of earth has used in all of recorded history up until 1914, in this false pursuit of living standards. Dear one, it is madness. The road to Elysium must be taken!”

Ed Wonder was shaking her arm, but Helen was not to be stopped. “Don’t call me dear one, Dads. Just because you have to live in a tent and wear gunny sacks doesn’t mean the rest of us want to.”

Ezekiel Joshua Tubber grew another six inches taller. “Thou hast failed to hear the word, O woman of vanity. Have I not said that the gifts of the All-Mother are being frivolously wasted in the name of thy vanities? Look thou at thyself. At thy dress, which thou wilt wear but half a dozen times before discarding for new fashion, new style. Look at thy shoes, so fragile as to need the cobbler’s care after but a few wearings. Look at thy visage, touched with multiple paints at fabulous cost, and always at the expense of wasting the gifts of the All-Mother. Did I not saith earlier that our copper is all but gone? Still every year women throw away hundreds of millions of brass lipstick holders, and brass is made largely of copper. Take up the path to Elysium, O woman of vanity!”

“Listen, Helen…” Ed Wonder was tugging unhappily at her.

But Helen was into it now. On her feet, she laughed at the enraged prophet.

“Maybe that daughter of yours, out front, would be enjoying herself on a date instead of hanging around a tent meeting, if she used a little makeup herself, Dads. And you can sound off the rest of the night about this path to the all-mother, or whatever, but you’re not going to talk me, or anybody else with good sense, out of looking my smartest. The number of style conscious people is growing, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Listen, let’s get out of here,” Ed pleaded. He was on his feet too, tugging her toward the aisle that led to the entrance. Once more, inanely, he wondered how the rickety wooden stand upon which Ezekiel Joshua Tubber stood could hold the swollen fury of the man. Even as he tugged, he wondered at the stricken faces of the small audience.

Only for a moment did Tubber hold his breath, then the voice came in a roar that would have silenced Götterdämmerung.

“Verily now, I curse the vainglory of woman. Verily I say that never again wilt thou find pleasure in vanity of the person. In truth, ne’r again wilt thou pleasure in paint or bright fashion of clothing!”

For the first time in the past five minutes, there was the slightest of sound from one of the group of faithful who had seemingly been stunned to silence at Helen’s temerity. Someone breathed, in awe, “…the power…”

2

“COME ON,” Ed urged through his teeth. “First thing you know, these kooks will want to lynch you.” He hustled her up the aisle, trying to make with an air of sincere apology while at the same time projecting an it’s-all-in-fun attitude. He doubted if it was going over. Helen was giggling softly. He could have strangled her.

The girl was a caution. Her devil-may-care attitude was too much for him. He began to wonder how far out the limb of ambition a man should climb, in the way of making a good business marriage.

Just before the entrance, he shot a quick look back over his shoulder. The audience still sat as though stricken. Up on the rostrum, old Tubber seemed to be regaining his composure. Somehow he had shrunken to his original proportions. Once again his appearance was that of a gentle Lincoln, his face in the sadness of ultimate compassion.

Outside, Helen shook her arm free. “Let go,” she giggled. “I really got him boiling, didn’t I?”

“You got him boiling, all right. Come on, let’s get out of here before he changes his mind and decides to sic the faithful after us.” But even as he said it, he doubted there was physical danger in the old man and his handful of followers.

The girl who had introduced herself as Nefertiti Tubber came hurrying up from the direction of the smaller tent.

“What… I heard Father…”

Helen said, “Simmer down, dahling. Nothing happened.”

Ed Wonder said, “You ought to look out for the old boy. He’s apt to blow a gasket one of these days.” He ran his eyes up and down the girl appreciatively.

She had pulled to a halt. “I… heard his voice raised in wrath.”

Helen yawned. “Your language is almost as fruity as his is, dahling. He got a little sore, that’s all.”

“But, Miss Fontaine, Father should never lose his temper. He is the Speaker of the Word.”

Helen scowled at her. “How did you know my name?”

Nefertiti began to say something, tightened her mouth momentarily, while her neck went pinkish.

“Oh, Mother” Helen laughed. “The girl can blush. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone blush for years.”

Ed said, “Come to think of it, how did you know Helen’s name?”

The girl said, lowly, “I… I’ve seen your picture in the papers, Miss Fontaine.”

They looked at her. Helen laughed again. “So, while Poppa sounds off against fashions and cosmetics, daughter reads the Sunday society page and yearns.”

The pink evolved to rose. “Oh… oh no…”

“Oh yes, Goody Two Shoes. I’ll bet a pretty.” Helen turned to Ed Wonder. “Come on, Little Ed. Let’s go.” She started toward the car.

Ed looked at the girl before following. He said, “Sorry about getting the old boy roused up. He was doing pretty good in there. At least he’s sincere. I meet a lot of phonies in my line.”

He got the feeling that she wasn’t particularly used to talking to men. At least when she was alone with one. Her glance went down to the ground and she said, “I suppose you do, Edward Wonder.” She turned quickly and went into the tent.

Ed looked after her. What the devil, she had known his name too. Well, he squared his shoulders in a preen, that wasn’t as strange as knowing Helen’s. His program was evidently taking on to the point where he was recognized. Confound it, if he could only get the show on TV, he’d have it made. He hurried after Helen.

Back in the car, and over the road, they reversed roles. Now that whatever physical danger might have been involved was behind them, Ed Wonder could find humor in the situation, but Helen was sobering by the minute and on the morose side.

She said finally, “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”

“What, the madcap socialite, Helen Beauregard Fontaine, regretting?”

She tried to chuckle. “Actually, he’s a beautiful old man. Did you dig that air of sincerity?”

Ed reversed himself on what he had said to Nefertiti. “That’s the stock in trade of religious kooks. You should see some of the characters I’ve had on the program. There was this one who claimed he had spotted a flying saucer landing. He went over to it and was taken aboard and off for a ride to Jupiter. On Jupiter—evidently, he could breath the air and the gravity was exactly the same as here on earth—they taught him the local religion and told him to return to Earth and spread the message. They said that several times before they had come to earth and trained a man to propagate the message, but each time it had become garbled. Moses, Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha were among those who loused-up the true religion revealed to them by the Jupiterians.”

Helen said, “Jet it up, will you? I feel awful How could you keep from laughing in this character’s face?”

Ed put a bit more pressure on the thrust pedal. “That’s what I mean. To listen to the guy, you’d think he was giving you a real square shake. Sincerity just dribbled from him. After that program, hundreds of letters came in wanting to know more about this revealed religion of his. He had mentioned that he was writing a book. The New Bible he called it. At least fifty orders came in, most of them with money enclosed. I tell you, when it come to religion, people believe anything. The more offbeat it is, the more faith they have. Whatever that is.”

“Little Ed Wonder, I’ll have to get Daddy to have Mulligan switch you back to morning soap operas. That far out program of yours is making a cynic of you.”

“That’s all I need. It took me years to get a program of my own.”

Her tone changed. “Besides, you shouldn’t talk that way about faith. There’s certainly nothing wrong with real faith.”

He took her in from the side of his eyes. “What’s real faith?”

“Oh, don’t be such a sharpy. You know what I mean. Real religion. Where are we going? Let’s stop for coffee. I guess that argument with old whiskers upset me.”

“I thought we’d go to the Old Coffee House; they’ve got a real waiter there. I like a real waiter. Sort of cozy.”

The fact was, he had credit with Dave Zeiss, at the Old Coffee House. You can’t swing credit in an automated place. Squiring Helen Fontaine around ran into money. You had to dress up to her, you had to be able, on demand, to take her to such spots as the Swank Room. He was lucky she didn’t object more strongly to his Volkshover. She thought it was some kind of affectation. Her own General Ford Cyclones were auto, of course. Even the sports model. He doubted if Helen could drive, had she been in a situation where she had actually to manipulate the controls.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been there,” she said idly. “What’s wrong with an automated coffee shop?”

“It’s just that I sort of like waiters.”

“Oh, Mother, I feel awful. How far is this place of yours? Why in the world do you continue to hang around in radio, Little Ed? Why don’t you go into business, like everybody else I know? Doesn’t money make any difference to you at all?”

He rolled his eyes upward, in knowledge that the darkness hid his expression. “I don’t know. I like radio. Of course, I’d rather have the program on TV. You sure you couldn’t drop a word to your father?”

“Where is this place?” Her tone was getting on the petulant side. Confound it, she was a spoiled brat.

“Coming up now.” Ed dropped the lift lever and drifted into the Old Coffee House’s parking area. It was far enough out of the city’s center for parking to be above ground. Even as he went through the motions of killing the Volkshover’s life, opening the door for her, and escorting her toward the brilliantly lighted coffee shop, Ed Wonder was muttering inwardly. Why didn’t he go into business … didn’t money make any difference at all? Ha! Why didn’t he raise walruses in goldfish bowls?

“Let’s sit at the counter,” Helen said. “Order for me while I freshen up.” She was off to the ladies’ room.

Ed took a stool at the counter.

Dave Zeiss came up and they swapped standardized amenities. Ed made his request for credit, which was accepted, ordered the coffee.

He said, “Listen, how about turning off that screen and the juke box? Between the two, I can’t hear my marbles rattle.”

Dave chuckled appreciatively. “I never before did hear that one, Mr. Wonder. You radio guys always got them on tap. How come you don’t like no music, being in the business and all?”

“That’s the exact reason I don’t like no music,” Ed growled. “Just because three quarters of the country doesn’t have anything to do but sit and stare at their idiot boxes, giving me a job supplying something for them to stare at, or listen to, doesn’t mean I have to like it too.”

Dave was shaking his head. “Gees, I’m sorry, Mr. Wonder, but I can’t turn them off. I got other customers. You know how folks are. They go squirrel if it gets too quiet. If there wasn’t no music going on, they’d go to the next joint.”

“I wanted to do some serious talking with the lady I’m with.”

“I tell you, Mr. Wonder, I’d like to do it, but it wouldn’t do no good, even if I did. Even if they did stick around, they’d just start tuning in their portables. There’s hardly anybody anymore doesn’t carry around at least a portable radio, usually a TV.”

A new voice said, “Little Ed Wonder! Horatio Alger’s representative on radio!”

Ed looked around. “Hi, Buzzo. How’s the demon reporter? How the devil do you ever hold a job dressed like a bum?”

The other said, “I seldom do, Little Ed. Seldom do, you old clothes horse.”

Ed said, screwing up his nose, “What do they make your cigars out of, rolled up army blankets?”

De Kemp took the object in question from his mouth and looked at it fondly. “This isn’t a cigar, it’s a stogie. When I was a kid I saw Tyrone Power playing a Mississippi gambler and smoking stogies. Never forgot it. A great Mississippi steamboat gambler was lost in me, Little Ed. I’ve got the soul for it. It’s a shame the sidepaddle river boat ever went out.”

Ed caught a glimpse of Helen returning to him and swiveled on his stool to help her to a place. Then his eyes bugged. He opened his mouth, couldn’t think of anything to say and closed it again.

Buzz De Kemp, his back to Helen so that he hadn’t seen her coming up, said, “Little Ed, what’s this gaff I hear about you playing up to some rich society dame? Somebody said you were trying to marry the boss’ daughter. You getting tired of working, chum? She hasn’t got a friend, has she?”

Ed Wonder closed his eyes in mute agony.

Helen looked her aristocratic look down her straight nose at the reporter. “What is this?” she said to Ed, not, Who is this?

Ed groaned. “Miss Fontaine, may I present Buzz De Kemp, of the Times-Tribune. That is, if he’s still got the job. Buzz—Helen.”

Buzz shook his head. “Phooey. You can’t be Helen Fontaine. Big glamour girl type. All jigged up hair styles, makeup that takes a couple of hours to plaster on. I’ve seen pictures of Helen…”

Helen turned to Ed, almost defensively. She said, “I washed my face and combed out my hair, just to get more comfortable. It must have been filthy in that tent. I absolutely itched.” She took the coffee and stirred sugar into it.

Ed Wonder couldn’t keep from staring at her. He said, “Listen, Helen, you didn’t take that old duffer’s sounding off seriously, did you?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said, watching the waiter fill her cup again. “It was simply dirty in that tent—I suppose.”

“What’s everybody talking about? What tent?” Buzz asked.

Ed said impatiently, “Helen and I went to a supposed revival meeting. Some offbeat crank named Ezekiel Joshua Tubber.”

“Oh, Tubber,” Buzz said. “I wanted to do up a couple of articles about him but the city editor said nobody was interested in new religious cults.”

Helen looked at him, as though for the first time. “You’ve been to his meetings?”

“That’s right. I’ve got a phobia for offbeat political economy theories. Regular phobia.”

To keep the conversation going along the present path, in wishful prayer that it would never get back to Buzz’s crack about trying to marry the boss’ daughter, Ed said, “Political economy? He’s supposed to be a religious twitch, not an economist.”

Buzz took a long drink of coffee before answering. He put the cup down and pointed at Ed with his stogie. “Where religion lets off and socio-economics begins can be a moot question, Little Ed. You’ll find most of the world’s religions have a foundation in the economic system of their time. Take Judaism. When Moses laid down those laws of his, chum, they covered every aspect of the nomad life of the Jews. Property relationships, treatment of slaves, treatment of servants and employees, money questions. The works. Same thing with Mohammedism.”

Ed said, “That was a long time ago.”

Buzz grinned at him and stuck the stogie back in his mouth. He said around it, “Want a more recent example? Take Father Divine. Ever heard of his movement? It started back in the big depression, and, believe me, if the Second War hadn’t come along Father Divine’s so-called religion might have swept the country. Because why? Because it was basically a socio-economic movement. It fed people at a time when a lot were going hungry. It was sort of a primitive communism. Everybody tossed everything he had into the common kitty. If you didn’t have anything to toss, that was okay too, you were still welcome. And then everybody worked, fixing up the delapidated old mansions they bought into what they called heavens. Those who could, got jobs on the outside as maids, chauffeurs, cooks or whatever, and the cash they brought in went into the kitty too. When a heaven saved up enough money and when enough new converts came along, they bought another old mansion and fixed up another heaven. Oh, it was going great guns until the war came along and things boomed and everybody hurried off to make a hundred dollars a week welding in the shipyards.”

Helen said, “What you say might apply to Father Divine and the Mohammedans, but not all religions are, well, economic.”

Buzz De Kemp looked at her. “That’s not exactly the way I put it. But, anyway, name one.”

“Don’t be silly. Christianity.”

Buzz threw back his head and laughed. He ground his stogie out. He said, “Who was it that said if Christianity hadn’t come along when it did, it would have been to the advantage of the Romans to invent it? And maybe they did.”

“Why, you’re insane. The Romans persecuted the Christians. Anybody knows that who’s read anything at all about history.”

“At first they persecuted them, but they made it the State religion after catching on to the fact that it was the perfect religion for a slave society. It promised pie in the sky when you died. Suffer on earth, and you get your just desert after death. What could be a better creed to keep an exploited population quiet?”

Ed Wonder said morosely, “This is getting to be a swell evening. We’re sitting here arguing politics and religion. What do you say we amble on, Helen? There’s still time to take in a show. I’ve got a couple of tickets to—”

Helen was saying heatedly, “You sound like an atheist!”

The reporter did a burlesque bow. “An agnostic with atheistic tendencies.” He grunted ruefully. “Actually, I can’t make any claims to intellectual superiority. My mother came from a long-time family of agnostics, and my father, though born a Seventh Day Adventist became one of those street corner atheists. You know, great for cornering some poor sincere Baptist and demanding if Adam and Eve were the only people in the world, who did Cain marry? So I was raised in an atmosphere that lacked belief in any organized religion. I became an agnostic for the same reason you became a Methodist or Presbyterian…”

“I’m an Episcopalian!” Helen snapped, not placated by his wry self-deprecation.

“Like your parents? And suppose a trick of fate had you born into a Moslem family? Or a Shintoist one. What do you think you’d be? Nope. Miss Fontaine—you really are Helen Fontaine, eh?—I am afraid we both lack originality.”

“Well, anyway that doesn’t apply to me,” Ed said. “My people were both Baptists and I switched to Episcopalian.”

Buzz De Kemp grunted. “You know, Little Ed, I suspect that under that fawning, pyramid-climbing exterior which you present to the world, beats a heart of pure brass. Let’s face up to cruel reality. You’re an opportunist. It’s all the thing to be an Episcopalian.”

Ed Wonder awoke from no deep dream of peace and groaned the words that had to be said to register with the voco-alarm and turn it off. The action brought back to mind that he was going to have to check his credit balance. The Volkshover wasn’t paid for yet, not to speak of this far out TV-stereo-radio-phono-tape recorder-alarmclock built into his apartment wall.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and scratched his wisp of a mustache. He moaned gently as he came to his feet and started for the bathroom. He stared into the mirror. Thirty-three years. When did you start getting middleaged? Maybe at forty. You couldn’t exactly call yourself young anymore at forty. He looked into his face for wrinkles, realizing he’d been doing that more often recently. He didn’t hare any wrinkles to speak of. And that merest touch of gray at his temples was on the plus side. Gave him some dignity. That was one of the advantages of a roundish face, slightly on the plump side. The wrinkles didn’t show like they did on a thin, long face.

He skinned back his lips so he could see his teeth. That was one of his unsolved problems, whether or not to have his lower front teeth straightened a bit for TV appearance. But then, there was such a thing as too perfect teeth. The twitches tuned in figured they were false.

And how about his mustache? Should he shave it off completely or let it grow heavier? He was presently wearing a thin line of a mustache currently popular among the bright young executive types. The trouble was, a thin mustache made him look like a stereotype Parisian gigolo. He probably wasn’t suited for a mustache at all, he decided gloomily. A mustache went with a face that had quite a space between the upper lip and the nose.

If he ever got the program on TV and off this kooky late hour radio arrangement, he’d have to settle about both teeth and mustache. You can’t go switching your appearance once you get to be a TV personality. The viewers get used to the way you look and they want you to continue looking that way. They don’t have brains enough to put up with switches. It irritates them.

He opened the jar of NoShav depilatory and began spreading it over his right cheek, rubbing it in well. Quite a few of the boys in TV had resorted to having their beards permanently removed. You couldn’t take chances of your public image. What was the name of that presidential candidate, way back, who supposedly lost the election because on camera he looked like he hadn’t shaved? The idea made Ed Wonder uncomfortable. Removing the hair from his face each morning was an act of masculinity. Had a way of making you feel, well, like a man. However, you couldn’t take chances with your public image. You couldn’t afford to look like a hooligan if you got your program onto TV.

The question of his credit balance came up again. Trying to keep up to Helen’s pace was getting to him. He wished he had the gumption to ask her to marry him. He had an unhappy suspicion that the idea would fracture her. But he had to do it sooner or later. The son-in-law of Jensen Fontaine. Holy smokes.

Maybe he should have asked her the night before. She was gay there for a while. And at one time, depressed. He’d never seen her before with her hair combed straight and her face completely free of makeup. Come to think of it, she had a certain wistful appeal, looking that way. He had to laugh inwardly. That old coot, what was his name? Tubber. Ezekiel Joshua Tubber. He had something with that able-to-swell personality of his. He’d evidently set Helen back with that cursing vanity, or whatever it was he had cursed.

Ed reached for a towel to wipe away the NoShav.

Ed Wonder parked his little hover car in the Fontaine Building’s cellar parking area and made his way to the elevators. There was only one fellow passenger in the elevator, a dowdily dressed, plain-faced young woman. She evidently didn’t care much about her appearance. Ed wondered vaguely who she worked for and who, in the swank Fontaine Building, would put up with such a drab.

It was none of his business. He didn’t bother to wait for her to call her floor first. He said, “Twentieth,” and the auto-operator said, “Twentieth, yes sir.” The girl called her own floor, in a throaty slur of a voice that vibrated warmth.

Ed Wonder looked at her with slightly more interest. With a voice like that, she belonged on the air. He took in her features. Why any beautician could go to town on that face. You could…

He pulled himself up, startled.

He said, “Oh. Pardon me. I didn’t recognize you, Miss Malone. I didn’t even know you were in Kingsburg.”

She took him in, disinterestedly. “Hello, uhh, Little Ed, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” he told her eagerly. “I caught your network program Monday night. Real sharpy.”

“Thanks, Little Ed. I came up for a special program. What are you doing these days? I don’t believe I’ve seen you since you helped with the commercials on the—let’s see…”

“The Sophisticated Heure show,” Ed reminded her, wagging his tail at the recognition. “I’ve got my own program now.”

Her eyebrows went up and she tried to project interest. “Really? How nice. Well, I’m afraid this is my floor.”

When she was gone, he scowled in perplexity. Then his face cleared. She was incognito. That was the way to handle avoiding the fans. Why, not even he recognized her. When he had a name like Mary Malone’s, maybe he’d have to figure out ways to keep his public off too.

He strolled down the corridor to his desk, his mind on the program to come. He’d had a letter from a swami, or yoga, or whatever he was, that might be a lead. He hadn’t had any Hindus on the show for some time. Indians went over pretty well. They sounded authentic. He noted vaguely that someone else was sitting at Dolly’s desk. Maybe the girl was ill. That’d be a pain. Dolly was his part-time assistant, his program not calling for a full secretary. She did most of the drudgery, and had been with him since he’d first got Mulligan’s okay for his offbeat show.

Ed Wonder pulled up before her desk and began to inquire who this newcomer was, then shut his mouth with an audible pop.

He opened it again to say, “What in the name of Mountain Moving Mohammed are you doing in this getup?”

Dolly said defensively, “What’s wrong with it?”

“You look like a country hick.”

She flushed. “I don’t think I have to take that from you, Little Ed Wonder. I’m clean. I’m neat. How I dress doesn’t effect the work I do.”

“Well, you’re my front. Suppose somebody came in? Maybe a potential sponsor. Possibly a potential guest. What does he think? You don’t see the other girls…” He swept his eyes around the extensive office, as though in indication, and came to an abrupt halt.

Dolly eyed him in superiority.

He blurted, “What in the devil’s got into all you dames? I just saw Mary Malone in the elevator. She looked like she was in costume to play Little Nell, down on the farm.”

Dolly said primly, “Mr. Mulligan asked you to see him as soon as you came in.”

Still letting his eyes go round the office, from one to the next of some dozen of secretaries and stenographers, in utter disbelief, Ed made his way to his immediate boss’ sanctum.

3

He’d carried out his assignment to cover Tubber’s meeting hadn’t he? Fatso Mulligan should have been on the grateful side. He should have been, well, genial.

Instead, he sat there like a lard Buddha and gave Ed Wonder the oatmeal look.

Ed cleared his throat and said, “You wanted to see me, Mr. Mulligan?”

The older man half-closed one eye, which didn’t go very far toward dimming the intensity of the glare. “See here, Wonder, what was the lame-brained idea of taking Miss Fontaine to that kooky meeting last night?”

Ed Wonder looked at him. He opened his mouth, closed it again. He could think of something to say, but there was discretion to consider.

Mulligan rapped, “Miss Fontaine is a highstrung young lady. Very susceptible to suggestion. Uh, delicate.”

Helen Fontaine was about as delicate as a hydrofluoric rubdown. So he had nothing to say in reply to that.

The TV-radio executive growled, “Well, don’t stand there shuffling around like a kid that has to go to the rest room. What’da you got to say?”

Ed had to say, “What’s happened, Mr. Mulligan?”

“What’s happened? How would I know what’s happened? Mr. Fontaine’s had me over the coals for the past ten minutes. The girl’s hysterical. She says this Tubber guy you took her to see hypnotized her, or something.”

Ed shook his head. He took a breath. “She’s not hypnotized.”

“How do you know she’s not hypnotized? She’s hysterical, keeps screaming about this Tubber.”

Ed said placatingly, “I’ve had several hypnotists on the program. In order to straight man for them, I had to cram up on the subject. I was there last night. Believe me, Tubber didn’t hypnotize anybody.”

Mulligan made movements of his mouth as though checking his dentures with his tongue. It came to Ed Wonder that it was just as well that his chief never appeared before camera.

He said finally, “You better get over there and see what you can do. Mr. Jensen isn’t happy about this Tubber character. We’re having a meeting of the chapter tonight. You’d better be there to give a report on what happened.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll go right on over to the Fontaine’s. She’ll probably snap out of it.”

Jensen Fontaine himself met Ed Wonder at the door of the Fontaine mansion. He had evidently been watching the progress of Ed’s Volkshover up the sweep of driveway that culminated in the grandiose entry which vaguely reminded the radioman of the White House.

Actually, he had met Helen’s father a couple of times before but only glancingly. Ed doubted that he was remembered. Evidently the tycoon had long since given up trying to channel his daughter’s life. Certainly he made no effort to censor her escorts.

He bent a grim eye on Ed Wonder now as the radioman ascended the stairs to the double doors, one of which was open. It was a day for grim eyes, Ed decided unhappily. For a long time he had been trying to get next to Jensen Fontaine through his contact with Helen. This wasn’t exactly it.

The older man rapped, “You’re this Edward Wonder?”

“Yes, sir. I have the Far Out Hour from midnight to one.”

“You have what ?”

Ed said unhappily, “On your radio and TV station, sir, WAN-TV. I have the Friday night program on radio from midnight to one o’clock.”

“Radio?” Fontaine rasped indignantly. “Do you mean to tell me that Mulligan still continues radio programs in this day? What’s wrong with television?”

Ed had a strong desire to close his eyes in suffering. However, he said, “Yes, sir. Nothing’s wrong with TV. In fact, I wish we could switch my program over. But there’s some people who can’t look at television.”

“Can’t look at television? Why not! TV has become the American way of life! What kind of people can’t enjoy television? Perhaps this should be looked into, young man!”

“Yes, sir. Well, blind people for one and…”

Jensen Fontaine’s eye went bleaker still.

“…and, well, people who are working and can’t sit down to watch a screen. People who are driving cars manually. There’s lots of people who still listen to radio when they can’t watch TV. I get a lot of truck drivers who listen to my program. And waitresses in all night restaurants. And…”

The elderly tycoon blurted, “I don’t know how in the confounded blasted blazes we got onto this. You’re the young fool who took my daughter to this ridiculous religious quack’s meeting last night?”

“Yes, sir. Yes, I was. I mean did, that is. The question came up whether or not this Ezekiel Joshua Tubber…”

“Who?”

“Yes, sir. Ezekiel Joshua Tubber.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Nobody has a name like that in this day. It’s a pseudonym, young man. And a man who needs a pseudonym is covering something. Probably something subversive.”

“Yes, sir. That’s the question that came up at the last meeting of the local chapter of the Stephen Decatur Society; whether or not this Tubber was subversive. So Helen, that is, Miss Jensen, and I went to attend.”

Some of the bleakness was gone. Jensen said, “Ummm, the society, eh. My country may she always be right …”

“But my country, right or… ah… wrong!” Ed clipped right back at him.

“Excellent, my boy. I wasn’t at the last meeting, Ed. I’ll call you Ed. Busy off at the convention in California. This Tubber is a subversive, eh? What’s he pulled on my daughter, Ed? We’ll get to the bottom of this.” He took Ed Wonder by the arm and led him inside.

“Well, no sir,” Ed told him, answering his first question. “At least it didn’t seem so to me. I’m supposed to make a report to the chapter tonight. Mr. Mulligan arranged it.”

“Hump. Sounds like a subversive to me. What did he do to Helen?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir. I came over to see her. I’d think she’s just upset. She had a bit of fun last night. Heckled Tubber a little and he got sore and cursed her.”

“You mean this charlatan, this, this subversive with the unknown name, actually swore at my daughter!” The glare was back.

“Well, no sir. What I meant was he laid a curse on her. You know, a hex. A spell.”

Jensen dropped Ed Wonder’s arm and stared at him for a long appraising moment.

Ed said, finally, “Yes, sir.” There wasn’t anything else to say.

Jensen Fontaine said, “Come with me, young man.” He led the way to a staircase and ascended it, wordlessly. He led the way down a hall, wordlessly. Around a corner, past a half dozen doors, wordlessly. He opened a door and preceded Ed Wonder through it.

Helen Jensen was in bed, her hair every which way on the pillow, her face pale, and her eyes on the wild side. There were two medical looking coves and a nurse starched Prussian stiff in attendance.

Jensen Fontaine blurted, “Out!”

One of the doctors said smoothly, “I would suggest, Mr. Fontaine that your daughter be given a long rest and complete change of scene. Her hysteria is…”

“Out. All of you,” Fontaine snapped, tossing his head at the trio of medicos.

Three sets of eyebrows went up, but all had evidently had contact with the Fontaine personality before. They gathered up odds and ends and beat a retreat.

Helen said, “Hello, Little Ed.”

Ed Wonder opened his mouth but before even greetings came forth, Jensen Fontaine’s blast chopped him to silence.

“Helen!”

“Yes, Daddy…”

“You get out of that bed. Suppose the newspapers got this. A curse! A hex! My daughter with two of the best diagnosticians and psychiatrists in Ultra-New York in attendance because she’s been hexed. Get out of that bed. What would this do to my name? What would it do to the society if the word went out that prominent members believed in witches?”

He spun violently, glared at Ed Wonder, for some unknown reason, and charged out of the room as though on the way to storm Little Round Top.

Ed looked after him. “How can a man who can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds make that much noise?” he said. He looked down at Helen. “What in the devil’s wrong?”

“I itch. Not right now. Like an allergy, or something.”

He looked at her for a long moment, as though he had put a dime in a slot machine and nothing had come out.

Finally he said, “When do you itch?”

“If I put on makeup. Even the slightest touch of lipstick. Or if I do up my hair any way except combed straight down to my shoulders or done in braids. Or if I put on anything except the simplest clothes I’ve got. No silk. Not even in my underthings. I simply start itching. It started really last night, but I didn’t realize it. Little Ed, I’m scared. It works. That old goat’s curse is working on me.”

Ed Wonder stared down at her. “Don’t be a twitch.”

She stared back at him, defiantly.

He had never seen Helen Fontaine before, save last night, in other than the height of heights, fashionwise. Every pore in place. It came to him now that she possibly looked better this way. Possibly when she got to be the age of Mary Malone, the screen and TV star, she’d need civilization’s contributions to aid nature’s gifts. But in her mid-twenties…

Helen said, “You were there.”

“Sure I was there. So old Tubber waved his arms around a little, got red in the face and slapped a hex on you. And you believed him.”

“I believed him because it worked.” she flared back.

“Don’t be a kook, Helen! Curses don’t work unless the person who has one laid on him believes it will work. Anybody knows that.”

“Fine! But in this case it worked without my believing in it. Do you think I believe in curses?”

“Yes.”

“Well, maybe I do now. But I didn’t then. And let me tell you something else, Little Ed Wonder. That chubby daughter of his, and those followers in the audience. They believe in the power, as they call it, too. They’ve seen him do it before. Remember how scared his daughter was when she heard him speaking in wrath?”

“They’re a bunch of twitches.”

“All right, all right. Go on. Get out. I’m getting up and getting dressed. But I’m going to dress in the simplest things I’ve got, understand?”

“I’ll see you later,” Ed told her, not doing very well at keeping disgust from his voice.

“The later the better,” she snapped back.

He had to get hopping on this program for the Friday after next. On his way past Dolly’s desk to his own he said to her, “Get me Jim Westbrook. And put a little snap into it, eh?”

“Who?” Dolly said. He still couldn’t get used to her well scrubbed face and her cotton print, not to speak of the Little Dutch girl hairdo.

“Jim Westbrook. We’ve had him on the program several times. He’s in the book as James C. Westbrook.”

He sat down at his desk and fumbled his key into the top drawer. Something was nagging him about Dolly’s down-on-the-farm getup, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Something that should be very obvious, but didn’t come through. He shook his head to switch subjects and brought forth the letter from the swami. He scanned it again. Confound it, this was the sort of character he could really project over TV. His program demanded TV. Half the kooks he had on as guests needed to be seen to be appreciated.

The phone buzzed and he picked it up.

It said, “Little Ed? Jim Westbrook here.”

“Yeah, hi Jim. Listen, I’ve got this Hindu twitch who calls himself Swami Respa Rammal. Claims he can walk on burning coals. Is there any chance he can?”

Over the phone Jim Westbrook said slowly, “With a name like that, friend, he sounds like a phony. A respa is a sort of Tibetian neophyte lama who indures fantastic cold as part of his training for full lamahood. And Rammal is a Moslem name, rather than Hindu. And he wouldn’t call himself a swami, either. That’s the wrong word. A swami is simply a Hindu religious teacher. Comes from the Sanskrit word svamin, meaning master.”

“All right, all right,” Ed Wonder said. “Phony name or not, is it possible that he can walk on burning coals?”

“It’s been done, friend.”

Ed was incredulous. “At 800 degrees Fahrenheit?”

“That’s a little better than the melting point of steel,” Jim told him, “but it’s been done.”

“When, and by whom?”

“Well, right offhand I can’t reel off names and dates but there’re two types of this fire-walking. The first takes place over coals and embers and the second over hot stones. The Hindus do it and so do various cults in the South Seas. For that matter, every year in Northern Greece and Southern Bulgaria they have a day on which they traditionally walk on hot coals. The British Society for Psychical Research and the London Council for Psychical Investigation both looked into it, witnessed it, and even had some of their members try it. Some succeeded…”

“And…” Ed prompted.

“Some burned the hell out of their feet.”

Ed thought about it. He said finally, “Look Jim, do you know anybody with some nice scientific sounding handle who disagrees with you? Suppose we made this a four way panel. Me, the swami, you, who agrees it can be done, and this scientist who claims it can’t. Possibly we can stretch it over two programs. The first one we’ll interview the swami and argue it around. Then during the next week we’ll have him perform, and we’ll report on the experiment the following program.”

Jim Westbrook said, “Come to think of it, I had an argument with Manny Levy a year or two back on the very subject.”

“Who?”

“Doctor Manfred Levy, down in Ultra-New York. He’s a big wig in popularization of science, several books to his credit. On top of that, he’s got a German accent you could chin yourself on. Makes him sound very scientific.”

Ed said, “Do you think you could get him to act as a panelist on my show?”

“Sure we could get him—at your top rates.”

“Not for free, eh? Not just for the fun of it? My budget’s running low for this quarter.”

Jim Westbrook laughed. “You don’t know Manny, friend.”

Ed sighed. “Okay, Jim. Get in touch with him, will you? Let me know soonest what he says.”

He switched off the phone, switched on the dicto and did a letter to Swami Respa Rammal. Whether or not they could get this Doctor Levy on the panel, he decided to use the fire-walker. A fire-walker, yet. Sometimes he wondered how he’d ever gotten into this line. Once he’d wanted to be an actor. It took him some ten years to find out he wasn’t. Deep within, Ed Wonder divided the world into two groups, those who gawked and listened, the twitches, and those who performed. He couldn’t stand not being one of the performers.

He got up and wandered over to the coke dispenser, not actually thirsty. On the way he stopped at the news teleprinter and let his eyes scan the last few dispatches. El Hassan was uniting North Africa, largely in spite of itself. The Soviet Complex was having interior rumblings again. The Hungarians were slowly replacing the Russians in the higher echelons of the party.

The teleprinter chattered and he took in the latest item.

A new fashion seems to be sweeping the nation… No makeup, no frills… Simplicity is the keynote… Robert Hope the third, TV comedian, has already tagged it the Homespun Look …

Ed Wonder grunted. So that’s why Dolly and the rest of the office staff had come to work looking like the hired girl all set to do the milking. The way these fads could spread. It was bad enough in the old days. Hems up, hems down; hair up, hair dbwn, pony tails, wigs, short, long, and what not; bosoms are in this season, bosoms are out. It had been bad enough but now with universal television, the welfare state and the affluent society, a fad could sweep the country overnight. The proof was in the fact that this one evidently had. That explained Mary Malone’s appearance in the elevator, too. Trust Mary Malone to be in there at the beginning.

However, he again had that premonition. He couldn’t quite put his finger on something he ought to remember. He shrugged and continued on toward the coke dispenser.

As he stood there, drinking from his plastic cup, he contemplated the machine. Just how far would the efficiency engineers finally go? The beverage was free. The time and motion people had figured out that it was cheaper to contribute free cold drinks than to have the office help waste the time they did in trotting around getting change, or borrowing a dime each time they wanted refreshing.

Mulligan waddled from his office and cast his eyes around the room, spotted Ed and started toward him.

The luck of the Irish. Why couldn’t he have been seated at his desk in a rash of hard work when Fatso issued onto the scene?

However, the studio head evidently wasn’t in his usual critical mood. He rumbled, almost pleasantly, “All set, Little Ed?”

Ed looked at him blankly.

“The chapter meeting,” Mulligan blatted. “Your report on this subversive religious kook.”

Ed said brightly. “Oh sure, Mr. Mulligan. All set to go.” Actually, he hadn’t given a thought to this. He should have spent some time on it. Old man Fontaine would be there and probably half the local business bigwigs. It was a chance to make an impression. To make contacts.

The meeting of the local chapter of the Stephen Decatur Society took place in one of the conference rooms of Coy Parfums, Incorporated. Ed Wonder hadn’t known that Wannamaker Doolittle, president of Coy, was a member of the society. Here was a contact, right off the bat. Coy perfumes were one of the big sponsors in Kingsburg.

His luck again. There wasn’t going to be a spell, before the meeting got under way, during which he could meet the big shots present. The meeting was already underway. In fact, he and Mulligan attracted the scowls of several present, including Jensen Fontaine, who was prominently seated at the far end of the table around which some thirty chapter members were gathered.

They slunk into two unoccupied seats, not adjoining each other.

It was Wannamaker Doolittle himself who held the floor. He was waving a newspaper and viewing something with alarm, as best Ed could make out.

“Listen to this,” the Coy head demanded. “Listen to this undermining of American institutions.” He read, accusation in his high voice:

“Planned obsolescence through style fluctuation can present one of the most unbelievable elements of our unbelievable economy. As good an example as any are the twice a year changes in Detroit’s autohovers. Last year, General Ford autohovers managed to get about in the night with but four lights, two forward, two behind. This year they carry fourteen outside lights, fore, aft and to the sides. Evidently, the autohover stylists couldn’t get together on just what all these banks of lights were for. On some, a few of the taillights were dummies, not hooked up to the wiring system. A similar example is to be found in the latest kitchen stoves. In the attempt to put over to the housewife consumer that her present stove is antiquated, latest models are so gimmicked up with control panels that they look like the conning tower of an atomic submarine. They carry as many as thirty-five buttons and dials. On dismantling one of these the Consumer’s Alliance found that many of the dials had no connections beneath the cover. They were dummies.”

Wannamaker Doolittle looked up in accusation. He banged the newspaper he held in his left hand with the back of his right. “Commie subversion,” he bleated. “Insidious underground attempt to undermine our institutions.”

“Hear, hear,” someone applauded, thumping on the table. There were general murmurs of indignation.

“Who is this Buzz De Kemp?” Doolittle demanded. “Do our newspapers hire any subversive who comes along claiming to be an honest journalist? Is there no screening? No check on his security rating?” He slapped the paper again. “What editor passes such open attacks upon two of the most important elements in our economy, autohovers and kitchen appliances? Last week the president exhorted the people to buy, buy, buy, in order to continue our prosperity. How can we expect full consumption of our products if women slave away over antiquated stoves, and if families drive rattling, unstylish autohovers, fully a year old?”

Ed Wonder’s ears had pricked up at the mention of Buzz De Kemp’s name. Buzzo must be slipping his gears to write things like that. Did he want to get a reputation as a kook?

Jensen Fountaine, evidently the chairman, banged the table with his gavel “A motion is in order to recommend to the publisher of the Times-Tribune that this malcontent reporter, uh, whatever his name is…”

“Buzz De Kemp,” Ed said, without thinking.

Eyes went to Ed Wonder, whose tie suddenly became overly tight.

“You know this obvious Communist?” Jensen Fontaine rapped.

“Well, yes sir. I’ve run into him several times. He’s not a Commie. According to him he just sort of makes a hobby of offbeat politico-economic theories. You know…” His sentence dribbled away as he saw his words weren’t exactly making a big hit.

Someone said darkly, “You can’t play with tar without getting your hands dirty.”

Fontaine banged the table again. “Do I hear a motion?”

Mulligan got out quickly, “Make a motion that a committee composed of members who advertise in the Times-Tribune draw up a letter to the publisher complaining of the reddish tinged articles of this De Kemp guy.”

Somebody said, “Second.”

There was a long-winded report then by some sort of library committee. Evidently they were having trouble with the children’s section in the town’s library. Something about refusing to ban Robin Hood from the shelves.

Ed Wonder looked suddenly alert. Jensen Fontaine had just used his name.

Helen’s father was saying, “During my absence I understand we had several letters concerning the subversive elements in the so-called sermons of a certain…” he looked down at the paper before him and snorted disbelief “…Ezekiel Joshua Tubber. Member Helen Fontaine, my daughter, and a staff member of WAN-TV attended a Tubber revival and as a result Helen was confined for a time to her bed. Mr. Edward Wonder will now report fully.”

Ed stood up. Already he wasn’t liking this and had an unhappy suspicion that he wasn’t going to win kudos.

Ed said, “The fact is, I’m no authority on underground subversion. I know it’s important work. Keeping the country from being overthrown by the Commies and all. But, well, I’ve got my nose to the grindstone at WAN-TV. Possibly some of you folks have tuned in to the Far Out Hour on Friday nights…”

Mulligan said ominously, “The report on Tubber, Little Ed, the report on Tubber. No commercials.”

Ed cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. Well, frankly, from what I heard, Tubber is anti-Communist, rather than a Commie. At least that’s what he says. He complained about people being too materialistic, concentrating on the things they own or consume, instead of spiritual things… I suppose.”

Somebody said, “My minister gives the same sermon every Sunday. On Monday we forget it.”

Somebody else said, “Oh, he does, does he? This is something I’ve been wanting to bring up. What’s wrong with our consumer society? What would happen to our economy if we listened to these supposed religious leaders?”

Fontaine banged his gavel. “Go on,” he said to Ed Wonder.

He didn’t sound too happy about the way the report was coming, so far. Which, in turn, didn’t make Ed any too happy either.

“Well, all I can say is that he didn’t sound like a Commie. In fact, Helen, Miss Fontaine, asked him a direct question about it and he made it clear that he wasn’t.”

The woman who had reported on the library said, mystified, “But what’s all this got to do with Helen being under a doctor’s care? What did he do to her?”

Ed looked in anguish at Jensen Fontaine who at first began to say something but then closed his mouth to a line so thin Ed Wonder decided you’d have your work cut out getting a knife blade between the lips. Oh great.

Ed said, “Well, Miss Fontaine was, ah, kind of heckling him. And he got sore and, well, cursed her.”

There was a silence. They’d made the same assumption Fontaine had earlier.

Ed cleared it up. “That is, he laid a hex on her.”

Wannamaker Doolittle said, “Hex?”

“Kind of a spell,” Ed said.

“What’s this got to do with her being in bed?”

Ed said, unhappily, “She says she itches.”

Jensen Fontaine banged his gavel. “Let’s cut short all this jabber. Exactly what did this crackpot say?”

In his barren actor’s years, Ed Wonder had spent considerable time in perfecting his memory. In remembering dialogue. Now he sent his mind back. He said, “It went something like this: Verily I curse the vainglory of women. Verily … when Tubber gets excited he slips into this fruity thee and thou language… Verily, never more wilt thou find pleasure in vanity. Truthfully, never again wilt thou find pleasure in styles or in cosmetics.”

Ed wound it up, hopefully. “That’s not exactly it, but almost. So you see, he wasn’t exactly just putting a hex on Helen. The way he worded it, actually what it amounts to is a curse on all women…”

He broke off in mid-sentence, because an icicle had just touched the base of his spine and was slowly working its way upward.

4

By the next morning, there was little doubt left in Ed Wonder’s mind. He scanned the teleprinter’s bulletins. It wasn’t a nationwide fad, it was a worldwide fad. Common Europe, the Soviet Complex, and the aborigines of the Galapagos Islands, for that matter, were all effected.

Fads there had been before. Every type of fad. People went for fads these days. The hula hoops and the Davy Crockett craze of an earlier decade were as nothing to today’s fads. As watching TV replaced working as the daily occupation of the average citizen, the slight tendency to rebel against complete ossification seated in one’s living room was taken up by the new tri-di cinema, which at least made you walk as far as the neighborhood theatre, and by fads, fads, fads.

Fads in food, fads in dress, fads in slang, fads in everything. It was one method by which the obsolescence by style manipulators kept their goods rolling. If convertibles were in, then sedans were out, and only a twitch, a kook, would be seen dead in one. If tweeds were in, gabardines were out, and you might as well throw yesterday’s suit into the disposal chute. If Chinese food came in, Italian, Turkish, Russian, Scottish, or whatever had been the fad last month, went out. And a restaurant which had optimistically stocked its shelves and freezers with products for yesterday’s fad, might as well dump them in the garbage.

Yes, fads there had been before, but never like this.

Ultimately, almost any fad originating in the West would spread to even the Soviet Complex. Did Battle Fatigue cocktails become the thing in Greater Washington, three months later they were being used to toast the health of Number One in the Kremlin. Did Bermuda shorts in Madras cloth become the rage for formal dress in Ultra-New York, they were adorning the thin limbs of the Chinaman in the streets of Peking within a matter of weeks.

But at least it took weeks.

So far as Ed Wonder could figure out, this current Homespun Look fad had hit the world simultaneously. The data he could uncover bore that out to his satisfaction. Possibly no one else realized it, but Ed Wonder did.

It had hit Saturday night at eight thirty-five local time. From all he could piece together, from confused news reports, it had hit an hour earlier, one time zone west, and had come into effect four hours later, by the clock, in England, six hours in Common Europe. And so on. In short, it didn’t go by man-made rules of time. It had hit simultaneously.

Some of the commentators had tried to suggest otherwise, undoubtedly in good faith. No one, as yet, had actually stumbled upon the truth as Ed Wonder suspected it.

He had listened to one jovial newsman who made efforts to trace the Homespun Look back several months, claiming that it had long been aborning and had suddenly blossomed forth. The same analyst pontificated on the fad. It wouldn’t last. Couldn’t last. It was against woman’s basic human nature. It was one style that simply wouldn’t have long range appeal to the fair sex. He had chuckled and revealed that the Homespun Look had already been a boon to Madison Avenue. The Textile Association had quickly raised an initial hundred million to be devoted to nipping it in the bud with a gigantic TV, radio and Skyjector campaign. Cosmetic manufactures were also supposedly in closed session to meet the emergency.

What the commentators didn’t know, what nobody knew except Ed Wonder and Tubber himself, and the handful of Tubber’s faithful, was that there had been no time limit set on the curse. It was slated for eternity. Always assuming that Tubber’s curses, however it was that he managed them, continued their initial effectiveness.

He considered telling Mulligan about his suspicions, and decided not to. If he started sounding off about hexes laid on by itinerant religious quacks, he’d wind up convincing people he’d been on this Far Out Hour program too long.

He wandered over to Dolly’s desk. As the day before, she was in full style. By the looks of her, it must have been a dress she’d had as a teenage kid. Something in which to go out into the country, on a picnic. No lipstick, no eyebrow pencil, no powder. No earrings. No nothing.

Ed said to her, “How do you like this new Homespun Look fashion, Dolly?”

Most of the masculine elements of the staff had been working the girls over in regard to their new getup. Dolly had evidently expected Ed Wonder to head the list of tormentors, but there wasn’t that in his voice.

She said, “Well, gosh, Little Ed, it’s just like any other style. It comes in, pretty soon it’ll go out. I don’t especially either like it or dislike it.”

He said, his voice low, “Listen, have you tried putting on makeup at all these last couple of days?”

She frowned, puzzlement there. “Well… yes, a couple of times.”

“And?”

She hesitated, her pert nose wrinkled. “Well, darn it, I felt itchy. You know, something like when you’ve had a bad sunburn and the skin starts peeling off.”

Ed Wonder shook his head. He said, “Listen, Dolly, get me Buzz De Kemp, over on the Times-Tribune, will you? That is, if he’s still at the Times-Tribune. I’ve got to talk to somebody.”

She bent on him the strange look he deserved and went about the chore. Ed Wonder went back to his own desk and took the call.

He said, “Hello, Buzzo. I didn’t know if you’d still be working there or not.”

The other’s voice said cheerily, “Not only here but basking in the warmth of a raise, Little Ed, old chum. It seems that some twitchy right wing outfit put in a beef to the editor about some of my articles. Wanted me fired. So Old Ulcers says the kind of pieces that’ll start enough controversy to have beefs coming in just might possibly pry a few dimwits off their TV sets long enough to read the paper. So I got a raise.”

Ed closed his eyes in sorrow at the workings of the world. “All right,” he said. “I’ve got to see you. How about the Old Coffee House in fifteen minutes? The coffee’s on me.”

“You talked me into it,” De Kemp said, his voice beaming. “It’s a date. And I think you’re beautiful, even with that queer mustache.”

Ed hung up and headed for the elevator.

He had hurried his way over, but by the time he arrived the newspaperman was already there. The Coffee Shop was practically empty. Ed suggested to Buzz that they retire to a booth.

They took places across from each other in a booth as far from the TV set and juke box as it was possible to get, and Ed looked gloomily at the reporter. He said finally, “I saw that article you did on gimmicked up style changes.”

Buzz De Kemp brought an eight inch long stogie from his jacket pocket and lit it. “Great stuff, eh? Actually…”

“No,” Ed said, completely ignored.

“…the practice goes back to the early sixties, when hovers were in their infancy. You know where I got that dope? From the old boy we were talking about the other night. He’s got more statistics on how our present affluent welfare state economic system is lousing up the nation…”

“Tubber!” Ed said.

“Sure, sure. Some of his data is dated a bit. Got a lot of it together back a decade ago. But it’s even more valid now than then. The last time I heard him talk he was on the country wasting its resources with disposables. Steaks and other meats that came in disposable frying pans. Muffins and biscuits in disposable baking tins. A throw away aluminium mousetrap; you don’t have to fool around with the mouse, you never even see it. You just throw away the whole unit. And plastic razors with the blade built in; use it once and throw it away.” Buzz laughed and drew on his stogie.

“Listen, all this aside. I heard him sounding off the same way the night Helen and I attended his meeting. But what I want to know is, did you ever hear him lay on a spell?”

The reporter scowled at him. “Do what?”

“Make with a curse. A hex. Put a spell on somebody.”

“Hey, the old boy’s not crazy. He’s just an old duck who’s viewing with alarm. Warning about the deluge to come. He wouldn’t really believe in curses, and even if he did, he certainly wouldn’t curse anybody.”

Ed finished his coffee. “Curse anybody ? The fact is he’s evidently cursed everybody. At least half of everybody. All women.”

Buzz De Kemp took his stogie from his mouth and pointed it at Ed Wonder. “Little Ed, you’re potted. Stoned. Swacked. Besides that, you don’t make sense. No sense.”

Ed Wonder had made up his mind to tell him. He had to tell somebody and he couldn’t think of anybody better. “All right,” he said. “Listen for a minute.”

It took more than a minute. During the process, Buzz De Kemp had ordered more coffee, but otherwise didn’t interrupt.

When Ed Wonder finally went silent, the newspaperman’s stogie had gone out. He lit it again. He thought about it, while Ed worked away at his coffee.

Buzz said finally, “It makes one beautiful story. We’ll exploit it together.”

“What?”

Buzz leaned over the table, pointing happily with the stogie. “It’s the Father Divine story all over again. Remember me telling you about Father Divine the other night?”

“What the devil has this got…”

“No, listen. Back in the early thirties, Father Divine was just one more evangelist picking up a scrubby living in Harlem. He only had maybe a hundred or so followers. So one day there was a knifing or something in his heaven and he was arrested and the judge gave him a mild sentence. However, a couple of reporters heard several of Father Divine’s followers say that the judge was flying into the face of disaster. That Father Divine would strike him dead. A day or so later the judge died of a heart attack. The reporters, seeing a story, went to interview the evangelist in his cell He played it straight, saying simply, ‘I hated to do it.’ Chum, believe me, when Father Divine came out of that jail, all Harlem was there on the street waiting for him.”

Ed demanded impatiently, “What in the devil…” Then he stopped short.

“Sure,” Buzz said urgently. “Don’t you get it? Old Tubber curses the vanity of women. Puts a hex on cosmetics and fancy styles in clothes. That sort of thing. And what happens the next day? The Homespun Look fad hits. Coincidence, of course, but what a coincidence.”

It was obvious now. “Yeah,” Ed said slowly, then, “but what did you mean about us exploiting it?”

The stogie was pointing for emphasis again. “Don’t be a kook. This is your chance of a lifetime. Up until now, on this offbeat program of yours you’ve had a bunch of freaks. Twitches who claim to have ridden in flying saucers, spiritualists who don’t have any luck raising spirits for you, faith healers who couldn’t take off a waft. But this time you’ve got it made. Go over and latch onto old man Tubber for your next show. He laid a hex on vanity and it worked. get it? It worked. And what’s more, he’s got witnesses. You witnessed it, Helen Fontaine witnessed it. Tubber’s daughter was there and a bunch of his followers. He’s got genuine bona fide witnesses that he cursed the vanity of women and the next day the Homespun Look took over. Can’t you see a story when it falls into your lap.”

“Holy smokes,” Ed said in awe.

“I’ll give you full coverage in the Times-Tribune. First build up to the program and then do a really good spread with lots of art, afterward. Maybe in the Sunday supplement.”

“Art?”

“Photographs, photographs—of Tubber and his tent, and his daughter. Tubber in the pose he assumes when he’s laying a hex on something. The works.”

He was carrying Ed Wonder away. With this sort of a show he might even get enough publicity to interest some sponsor. Why, he might even get his TV spot for it.

He said, “But I’ve got an ESP girl on for this Friday.”

“Bounce her. Postpone her. This is hot. You’ve got to use Tubber while this Homespun Look fad is new. It’ll be old hat in a couple of weeks. This is one style that the bigwigs aren’t going to let last. They can’t afford to. Department stores, beauty shops, cosmetic manufacturers are already howling. They want the President to give one of his famous Air-Conditioner Side chats, telling the women of the country they’re destroying prosperity.”

“Right!” Ed told him. “We’ll do it. I’ll have to get hopping. I’ll need to dig up some panelists to appear with him. Ask him questions, that sort of thing.”

“Me!” Buzz crowed. “I’ll be a panelist for you. I’ve listened to him half a dozen times. Then get Helen Fontaine to appear, since it was she who brought on the hex. Maybe we can get her to plead with him to reverse the spell.”

“Yeah,” Ed took it up. “And his daughter, Nefertiti. She’s as cute as a pair of cuff links. Nice voice too. We’ll work her in. She implied that old Tubber had made with a hex or two before, when he was speaking in wrath as she called it.”

Ed Wonder had the faintest twinge of misgiving on the way over to where Ezekiel Joshua Tubber had his tents pitched. What would Mulligan, and the Stephen Decatur Society have to say about opening the airwaves to the man that only the week before they were investigating for subversion? He decided he wouldn’t bother to tell the studio head. If he could get Helen Fontaine to appear on the show, Mulligan wouldn’t have much to say. And Buzzo was right, this was a program that was going to pull attention. The breaks, at long last, were coming Ed Wonder’s way.

They drew up to the parking area of the large empty lot the Tubber followers had appropriated for his stay in the vicinity, and Ed Wonder dropped the lift lever of the Volkshover and settled to the ground.

Buzz said, “Hey what’s going on? What’s going on?”

“It looks like they’re wrapping it up,” Ed said. “They’re pulling down the main tent.”

The scrambled out of the little hovercar and made their way in the direction of the activities.

Nefertiti Tubber spotted them first. She had emerged from the smaller of the two tents, carrying a coffeepot and four cups in her hands.

For some inane reason, there came to Ed Wonder’s mind a couple of lines he hadn’t thought of since high school.

Maud Miller, on a summer’s day, Raked the meadow, sweet with hay.

He said from the side of his mouth, “For the past couple of days I’ve been seeing this Homespun Look. For the first time I can say, on her it looks good.”

“On her it looks natural,” Buzz said back. “The rural simplicity bit.”

She stopped and waited for them, questioning in her eyes.

Ed said, “Ah, Miss Tubber. You and your father aren’t leaving?”

She cocked her head infinitesimally. “I’m afraid we are. We’ve been here two weeks, you know.” She paused before adding, “Edward Wonder.” She looked at Buzz. “Good afternoon, Buzz De Kemp. I noticed that you used material from my father’s sermons in some of your articles.”

“Well, yes I did.”

“Without bothering to mention their source, or even that father was in town.”

Buzz winced. “Well, frankly, Miss Tubber, I wanted to do some pieces on the old… that is, your father. But the city editor killed them. Sorry. No interest in small religious cults.”

“That’s why we came over to see you,” Ed put in hurriedly.

She turned her incredibly blue eyes to him. “Because there is no interest in small religious cults, Edward Wonder?”

“Well, in a way. Listen, just call me Ed. What we thought is that if your father appeared on my program he’d reach hundreds of thousands of people, right in their homes.”

Her face brightened momentarily, but then the frown was there again. “But your program deals with cranks, with fakes, Edward… that is, Ed. My father…”

He said hurriedly, “Not at all, Nefertiti. You don’t get it. My program is designed to give people, who ordinarily wouldn’t be able to reach the public, an opportunity to present their beliefs, no matter how extreme. Admittedly some are fakes, some are even crooks, but that doesn’t mean that perfectly sincere folk aren’t also represented. This is your father’s chance to get his message over on the big time.”

She said hesitantly, “Father’s never been on the radio… Ed. I don’t believe he even approves of radio. He thinks people found more enjoyment when they played their own music. When each member of the family had his own instrument, or could sing.”

“When was that?” Buzz De Kemp said flatly.

Her eyes came to him. “It still applies in Elysium.”

The newspaperman started to say something further, but Ed Wonder hurried in. “It’s not important whether or not he approves of radio, or if he’s ever been on. I’m used to inexperienced folk. Almost all my guests are. This is his big chance. Besides, you’ll be on too. And Buzzo, here. And, I think, Miss Fontaine.”

She worried the idea a little, but then shrugged comfortably plumpish shoulders. “We can ask him.” She led the way and now Ed and Buzz could see the elderly evangelist who was, with several others, pulling down the larger tent. Wooden chairs had already been folded and stacked outside, and the lecture platform folded up for transport.

When he spotted the two, he said something to the others who continued the work, and came over.

The old railsplitter, Ed Wonder thought all over again. Abe Lincoln in Illinois. The man had a personality. Maybe he was a father image, or something. It was a shame the program wasn’t already on TV. It’d really go over if the audience could see this bird.

Ezekiel Joshua Tubber looked from one of the newcomers to the other. “Yes, dear ones?” he said.

Ed Wonder cleared his throat. “My name is…”

“I know your name, dear one. My daughter told me of your identity the other night.”

It came to Ed very suddenly that he wasn’t going to get Tubber on the show by appealing to venality. Instinctively he knew the man was no spellbinder on the make. Driving over here, with Buzz De Kemp, Ed had figured on promising the evangelist an opportunity to bring himself before the people in such a way that he would eventually make such great revivalists of the past such as Billy Sunday and Billy Graham look like pikers. Now he decided it might well be better if he made no mention of the curse at all, at this point.

Ed said, “Mr. Tubber, I…”

Tubber said gently, “Mister is derived from the title, Master, dear one. I wish to be no one’s master, no more than I wish anyone to be mine. Call me Ezekiel, Edward.”

“Or Zeke, for short,” Buzz De Kemp said.

Tubber looked at the newspaperman. “Yes,” he said gently. “Or Zeke, for short, if you will, dear one. It is an honorable name, that of one of the more progressive thinking of the Hebrew prophets who wrote the twenty-sixth book of the Old Testament.”

“Easy, Buzzo,” Ed muttered from the side of his mouth. Then to Tubber, “What I meant, sir…”

“The term sir, a variation of sire, comes down to us from the feudalistic era, dear one. It reflects the relationship between noble and serf. My efforts are directed against such relationships, against all authority of one man over another. For I feel that whoever puts his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and a tyrant! I declare him my enemy!”

Ed Wonder closed his eyes for a moment and held silence. He opened them again and said, “Listen, Ezekiel, how would you like to appear on my radio program Friday night?”

“I would like it very much. It is high time our mass media be utilized for dispensing other than trivialities.” The bearded oldster looked wearily at the worn tent being dismantled by his assistants. “It is not through desire that my words are given to so few.” His eyes came back to Ed Wonder and Buzz De Kemp. “I thank you for the opportunity to bring the word to the million mass, dear ones.”

It had been that simple lining up Ezekiel Joshua Tubber.

Now Helen Fontaine was another thing.

Helen Fontaine glared at the two of them. “Put myself near enough to that old goat to even hear his voice again? Oh, Mother. Do I look as though I’ve gone completely around the corner?”

They were in the so-called recreation room of the Fontaine home. Recreation, so far as the Fontaines saw it, must have consisted of drinking since the room offered little beyond an elaborate autobar. Ed had stationed himself behind it, dialing for the three of them, while Buzz made the pitch.

Helen was garbed in a simple cotton print. Her shoes were low of heel. Her hair, in braids. Her face looked as though it had been thoroughly scrubbed not five minutes earlier.

Buzz De Kemp moved his stogie from the left side of his mouth to the right, thoughtfully. He said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of in that old boy. He’s a kindly old coot, as innocent as—”

“A stick of dynamite,” Helen put in bitterly. “Give me another beer, Little Ed.”

Ed said, “I’ve never seen you drink beer before.”

She grunted. “Neither have I, but I’m beginning to suspect that anti-vanity curse of Tubber’s covers ostentatious drinks. Nothing tastes good to me anymore except beer and dago red wine.”

Buzz said, “Now look, you don’t really believe Tubber put a hex on you?”

“Yes. And I have no intention of getting near enough to him for him to dream up another one, sharpy.”

Buzz said, “Okay. Grant for argument that he did, really, truly put a spell on you. If he can put it on, he can take it off, can’t he?”

She frowned at him, over the rim of her beer glass. “I… I don’t know. I suppose so.”

“Why, sure,” Ed put in helpfully.

Buzz said, “So fine. You’ll admit he’s a sweet old duffer until you get him roused up. I’ve never seen him roused up but I’ll take the word of you two that you heckled him into a temper the other night. But basically he’s a sweet old man. So fine. Come on the air with us and apologize to him and ask him to reverse the spell.”

She thought about that, pulling on her beer.

“You know,” she said finally. “This’ll pop like corn, but I don’t particularly object to this built-in allergy I’ve got to cosmetics and fancy dress. I think I feel more, well, comfortable than I have since I was a child.”

Buzz bore in. “Sure, fine. But how about all the other women in the world? Billions of them. Billions. You’re young and pretty. Any style looks good on you. Even the Homespun Look. But how about all the women who don’t start off with your advantages? All the rest of them are under this hex you brought on too.”

Ed looked at him. “I thought you didn’t believe in it?”

Buzz said, “Shut up. This is just for the sake of argument.” He said to Helen, “Besides, it’s Little Ed’s big chance. A real blockbuster of a show. It’ll get as much publicity as Orson Welles’ expeditionary force from Mars back in the 1930s. But you’re necessary. You’re the big witness. You’re the one he cursed, but in miswording it, he took in all other women as well. Little Ed needs you on the program.”

Helen said decisively, “All right, I’ll do it. I should have my skull candled, but I’ll do it. However, I’ll tell you right now, sharpy, my women’s intuition tells me a wheel is going to come off this go-cart.”

Buzz took his stogie from his mouth and looked at the unlit tip. “Women’s intuition,” he said flatly. “First we get hexes and spells and now we get women’s intuition. Next week I’ll meet somebody who believes in fairies.”

From the first, the program didn’t come off exactly the way Ed Wonder and Buzz De Kemp pictured it. In fact, it didn’t come off remotely in the manner they had pictured it.

Up until Jerry, in the control booth, signaled that the mike was hot, everything was routine. Ed Wonder had set up Studio Three for five persons, himself and four guests. There was a mike for each of them. A pad and a pencil for each, so that anyone could make notes, or doodle, or whatever. Tubber and his daughter Nefertiti had arrived a full hour before broadcast time. Helen and Buzz De Kemp came together, a half an hour later, Buzz having picked up Helen at her house, afraid that she might renege at the last moment.

Ten minutes before going on, Jerry, the engineer, had taken a level on their voices. Then they had waited. When the red light had lit, signifying that the studio was hot, Ed launched into his routine. Since his program was live and off the cuff, rather than being taped, it could be variable. Sometimes one of his guests, and the panelists he had to help question them, would take up the full horn, effortlessly. Sometimes, however, he’d get a kook who just didn’t come off and Ed would have to wind up the interview and play music and chatter for the rest of the time.

Tonight, he had a satisfied belief he wasn’t going to have to play music.

He said into the mike, after the routine of station identification and the naming of the program, “Folks, tonight we’ve got something different. Of course, every Friday night I try to bring you something, somebody, different. We’ve had everything from a man who talked to horses to a woman that flew. Now, of course, to some this might not seem very far out, but on this program things are special. Not only did our guest talk to horses like any jockey or cowboy might do, but he got replies since he was speaking horse language. Our woman who flew didn’t bother to have an airplane around her. She flew all by her lonesome. Levitation, she called it.”

From the side of his eyes, Ed Wonder could see that his guest of the evening Ezekiel Joshua Tubber, wasn’t taking this any too well. His daughter, sitting next to him, was showing signs of acute apprehension.

Ed hurried on. “But tonight, folks, we’ve got somebody here who’ll really set you back. A religious prophet, crisscross my heart and point to heaven, who can cast hexes wholesale. And what’s more, we’re going to prove it. Because folks, we have here in the studio the man responsible for the Homespun Look, that supposed fad which has swept the globe in the past week. It’s not a fad, folks, not a fad at all. It’s a real, true hex which our guest of the evening, Ezekiel Joshua Tubber, has cast on all womankind. Also with us tonight is Nefertiti Tubber, daughter of our guest-in-chief; Helen Fontaine, well known Kingsburg socialite; and Buzz De Kemp, whose byline in the Times-Tribune you’ve all come to know. Mr. Kemp, who simply doesn’t believe in spells, folks, will help question evangelist Ezekiel Joshua Tubber.

“Now then, first of all, Mr. Tubber, with a name like yours I assume in your revival meetings you carry on a long tradition of good Christian family.”

The Lincolnesque face had been losing some of its gentle sadness as Ed progressed. Now Tubber said tightly, “Then you make an incorrect assumption, Edward. First, the meetings I have been addressing are not revivals. It is my teaching that Christianity, along with Judaism, Mohammedism, and indeed all other present day organized religions, is a dead, profitless religion and I have no intention of reviving the corpse.”

“Oh,” Ed said blankly. “Ah, evidently I gained a wrong impression, folks. Then, just what were you, ah, preaching at your tent meetings over on Houston Street, Mr. Tubber?”

“A new religion, Edward. One fitted to our times.” His voice had taken on inspiration.

Buzz De Kemp said wryly, “The human race needs another religion like it needs an extra collective aperture in the head. We’ve got so many religions now, we can’t sort them out.”

Tubber turned on him quickly. “To the contrary. But very little knowledge of religion shows that a major one has not come upon the scene for nearly fifteen hundred years. And what was that? Mohammedism, a religion, like Judaism and Christianity, born in the desert to express the religious needs of semibarbaric nomads. The great religions of the East, such as the Hindu and the Buddhist, are even older. I tell you, dear ones, that in their day perhaps these beliefs of our ancestors were positive in their effects. But the world has changed. Man has changed. There is need today for a new religion, one that fits out modern condition. One that will point out the way to a more full life, not simply parrot the words of men of past centuries who knew not the problems that would confront our generation. The proof that these hoary religions of the past are no longer valid is to be seen in the direction of our people. We play lip service to our churches, temples, synagogues and mosques but the lives we lead are without ethic.”

Buzz De Kemp said sceptically, “You think it’s up to you to start this new religion?”

“An individual, dear one, does not start a religion. A religion swells up from the hearts of a people to fit a need. Had the Christ been born two thousand years earlier, there would have been none to listen to his words, his time was not yet. Were the Prophet Mohammed to be born today, rather than in the 6th Century, he would meet with closed ears rather than the open acceptance of his own times. It is simply that I have been one of the first to sense this need for a new creed. I have felt it and the duty is upon me to spread the word.”

Ed Wonder wasn’t feeling any too happy about this. Mulligan had warned him repeatedly that he was to stay away from politics and anyone who attacked accepted religion. Mulligan didn’t want any subversives or atheists on WAN.

Ed said hurriedly, “Well, folks, this is all very interesting. Our guest of honor seems to think the world is due for a new religion. It reminds me of that chap we had on a few months ago who told us he had flown up to Jupiter and been given a New Bible which he was going to have published.”

Tubber’s face was growing dark again, and Nefertiti made ineffective motions to Ed Wonder which were obviously meant to turn off his present trend of chatter.

“But lets get back to this curse thing, sir. Now…”

Buzz De Kemp said, “Just a minute, Little Ed. This new religion. From what you’ve said, and from your lectures I’ve attended, I get the impression that there are socio-economic connotations to it. Now could you tell us, briefly, just what this new religion stands for?”

“Yes, of course.” Tubber seemed slightly placated. “We seek the path to a better life. To Elysium, where a new society will replace that of today.”

“Just a minute,” De Kemp broke in. “You mean this new religion of yours plans on upsetting the present social order?”

“Exactly,” Tubber said.

“Overthrowing the government?”

“Of course,” Tubber said, as though nothing could be more obvious.

“You plan to establish some sort of communism…?”

“Certainly not. The Communists are not radical enough for me, dear one.”

Ed Wonder closed his eyes in anguish. He could picture Fontaine, Mulligan and the whole Stephen Decatur Society, for that matter, all tuned in.

He said, hurriedly, “Now this curse thing.”

“What curse thing?” Tubber said testily. It was obvious that the whole show was not going anyway similar to what he’d had in mind. “You keep talking about hexes and curses. Is this a serious program or not?”

Nefertiti put a hand on his arm and whispered, “Father…”

He shook off her gentle restraint and glared at Ed Wonder.

Buzz De Kemp was chuckling silently.

Ed looked at the would-be religious leader blankly. “The curse,” he said. “The curse you put on Miss Fontaine here, and all womankind.”

It was Tubber’s turn to go blank. “Are you insane?” he demanded.

Ed Wonder put his hand over his eyes and leaned for a brief moment on the table.

Helen at long last said something. She leaned forward and said urgently, “Little Ed has asked me to publicly apologize to you and ask that the curse be lifted.”

Ezekiel Joshua Tubber was beginning to swell. His grey streaked beard had a bristling quality.

“What curse?” he bellowed.

“Last Saturday,” Helen said worriedly. “You were talking about the waste of national resources or something and that women changing styles all the time were helping to deplete our nation, however you put it. And I argued with you.”

Nefertiti said placatingly, “Father forgets what he says when he speaks in wrath.”

Ezekiel Joshua Tubber rumbled ominously, “I begin to suspect that thou hast brought me here to ridicule the Path to Elysium.”

Ed Wonder could see his super-show melting away by the moment. “Now look here, Mr. Tubber…”

“I have told thee that I forbid being addressed as Mister…” The cult leader was beginning to breathe deeply, and for the second time Ed Wonder and Helen Fontaine witnessed his seeming growth in size.

“All right, all right,” Ed said, peevish himself. “All I can say is you don’t seem very grateful for this opportunity to reach all these good folk tuned in for a bit of entertainment.”

“Entertainment!” Tubber thundered. “Yes, entertainment! Thou hast brought me before the snickering multitudes to be presented as a freak, as a crank. I knew not the nature of your program, Edward Wonder.” He began coming to his feet.

Nefertiti moaned, “Oh, no,” so softly that none heard.

Buzz De Kemp had brought a stogie from his coat pocket and placed it in his mouth. He was grinning around it happily. He said now, “Face facts, Zeke, old boy. The only chance you’ve got of spreading your word around, is by the use of radio and TV. People just aren’t interested in treking out to sit on wooden chairs in tents. They want their entertainment piped into their homes. And, believe me, if you want to put your story over, you’re going to have to spice it up. Get a few jollies into it.” He laughed.

To his horror, Ed Wonder could see, through the heavy glass of the studio wall, Jensen Fontaine, immediately followed by a blowing Matthew Mulligan, come storming in the direction of Jerry’s control booth. Ed closed his eyes in suffering.

He opened them to find Ezekiel Joshua Tubber seemingly reared a full six and a half feet, one clinched fist on high.

“Radio!” he trumpeted. “Now verily do I curse radio, this invention of evil which in truth hast robbed our people of all individuality. Which hast verily made of them unthinking clods awaiting foolish entertainment.”

“Oh, brother,” Buzz said happily.

“…the power…” Nefertiti moaned.

Ezekiel Joshua Tubber spun on his heel and began storming the studio door, Nefertiti chasing after him.

Ed Wonder sank back into his chair with a groan. In the control room he could see Mulligan and Fontaine. The soundproofing prevented his hearing what were obvious shouts of command on the part of the red-faced tycoon. However, Jerry didn’t seem overly concerned at their words. The radio engineer was scowling down at his controls, fiddling with dials and switches.