Earth Unaware

5

“To rescue what could be rescued from the debacle”, Ed Wonder said hurriedly into his mike, “Well, folks, I’m afraid things have come a cropper tonight. Of course, that can happen on the best of shows when everything’s off the cuff and you’re dealing with guests who are non-pros. So we’ll have a bit of music now and possible later I’ll fill you in with a little background on what we expected to present to you tonight. Jerry, let the music go round!”

The red light flicked off indicating that Studio Three was no longer hot, and Mulligan’s voice over the intercom from the control booth blatted, “Wonder! We’ll see you in my office soonest!”

Ed Wonder closed his eyes in suffering.

He opened them wearily, warily. Ezekiel Joshua Tubber and his daughter Nefertiti were gone. Helen Fontaine and Buzz De Kemp alone still sat at the studio table. Buzz was chuckling inanely. He brought out a kitchen match and flicked it into flame with a thumbnail and lit the stogie he’d been chewing on.

“Now that’s what I’d slug a show,” he proclaimed. “If I could get programs with jollies like this, I might listen to radio.”

Helen said, “I’m sorry, Little Ed. Oh, Mother, what a mess.”

Ed looked at the engineer’s control booth. Jensen Fontaine and Mulligan had already left it, evidently having adjourned to the latter’s office to rig up a guillotine.

Ed went to the studio’s soundproof door, opened it, crossed to the control booth door and went inside. Jerry was still fiddling with his controls, scowling.

Ed said, “What’s the matter?”

Jerry looked up at him, taking his pipe from his mouth the better to talk. “We’re getting an one eighth of a second echo that’s just as strong as the original.”

“What’s that?”

Jerry told him, adding, “If you want to get driven nuts rapidly, try listening to something with a one half to one tenth of a second echo.” He put his pipe back in his mouth and went back to his fiddling. “I’ll clear it up in a minute.”

“Like the devil…” Ed muttered. He turned and left the booth. Helen and Buzz were just leaving Studio Three.

Helen said, “We’re going to see Daddy with you. It wasn’t your fault.”

Buzz said, around his stogie, “Maybe the paper needs a radio-TV editor and you can get a job with us.”

Ed glared at him. “This is a great time to make with funnies, you sloppy bum. The whole thing was your idea.”

Buzz chuckled. “Sorry. I didn’t know the old boy was that cracked. Did you dig that expression when he was laying his hex on radio? Wow, what a story it’d be if it really worked. If he could lay a hex on radio. What a story.”

Ed started down the hall. He growled, “Then you’d better start writing it.”

They entered the general office, Helen and Buzz bringing up the rear. Buzz said in puzzlement, “What’da you mean, chum?”

Ed stopped briefly at Dolly’s desk. Dolly was frantically answering calls.

“Yes, yes we know. Reception is scrambled. The engineers are working on it. It will be all right very shortly. Thank you for calling.” And then, all over again. “Yes… yes, we know the program isn’t coming over. The engineers…”

Ed, Helen and Buzz continued on, the newspaperman staring back over his shoulder at the office girl. He said to Ed Wonder, “What’s going on?”

“The hex is going on,” Ed said. He held the door open for Helen and they entered Mulligan’s office.

Jensen Fontaine stood in the center of the room, evidently counting down before blastoff. When Ed entered he roared, “Wonder, you’re fired!”

“I know, I know,” Ed told him. He walked over to the built-in TV screen that occupied a sizeable portion of one wall and flicked it on. Fontaine, Mulligan, and Helen and Buzz for that matter, were staring at him. It wasn’t the reaction any of them, knowing Ed Wonder, had expected.

He waited for the screen to clear. It never quite did. Finally he turned the set off again. He said absently, “TV is a form of radio, too. I wonder if even radar is effected.”

He turned back to Jensen Fontaine and Mulligan.

Fontaine evidently assumed that the other hadn’t understood him. He bellowed again, “Giving that atheistic subversive the opportunity to speak his piece on my radio station, you idiot! I tell you, Wonder, you’re fired!”

“I know it,” Ed grunted. “So is everybody else on radio and TV. Goodnight, everybody.”

Ed Wonder was awakened by the alarm’s voice saying, “You are wanted on the phone.”

He grumbled himself awake. He’d been dreaming of Ezekiel Joshua Tubber who was about to lay a curse on eating food. Ed Wonder and Nefertiti, who for some unknown reason had been attired in a bikini, had been frantically trying to dissuade the old man. Ed scratched his wisp of a mustache.

His elaborate TV-stereo-radio-phono-tape recorder-alarm said again, more loudly this time. “You are wanted on the telephone.”

He yawned. “Oh, yeah,” and switched it on. Mulligan’s face faded in.

Mulligan’s voice blatted, “Little Ed! Where’ve you been?”

He yawned again. “I haven’t been anywhere. Remember? I’m fired.”

“Well, now look, maybe we can do something about that. See here, Little Ed…”

Even as the other was talking, Ed Wonder switched on the TV screen. He winced when it lit up. He turned to another channel, and then another. The one-eighth of a second echo was still plaguing the radio waves. He killed it.

Mulligan was saying, “Mr. Fontaine was possibly a little hasty.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Ed told him.

“Well, at any rate, it looks like he’s been talking to his daughter and Miss Fontaine seems to have taken your part. They want to see you over at their place. See here, you know what’s been going on?”

“Yes,” Ed said.

Mulligan ignored him. “It’s sun spots, or something. There’s not a station on the air that’s giving any sort of reception at all.”

“Yeah,” Ed said. It occurred to him that neither Mulligan nor Fontaine had heard Tubber making with his curse. They’d been too busy yelling at Jerry in the control room to switch off the program.

“Well, look, Little Ed. Are you going over to see Mr. Fontaine?”

“No,” Ed said. He switched off the phone, then stared down at it. He just realized that he had performed a long-time ambition that he hadn’t realized he’d had. He’d hung up on Fatso.

He grunted. What neither Mulligan or Fontaine realized was that there was no point in worrying about regaining his job—not so long as there was no TV or radio.

When he’d finished shaving, showering and dressing, he decided that breakfast in his own auto-kitchen didn’t appeal’ to him and that he’d go down to the corner drugstore and dial himself some sausage and egg. He had some thinking to do, but he was in no hurry to start. He gave a last look at himself in the bathroom mirror. Thirty-three years. Ten years spent trying to break into the thinning ranks of show business. Nearly five working himself patiently up in TV and radio. Now at thirty-three, jobless. Oh, great. But somehow he didn’t feel as badly as he thought he ought to be feeling.

He turned to go and then looked back again and eyed his tiny mustache. A little wisp of mustache was to be seen on the faces of practically every aggressive young executive in the thirty to forty year age bracket. It was currently the thing.

Ed Wonder took up his jar of NoSbav and rubbed a smear of it across the sprig of hair. He took up a towel, and wiped the hair away. He looked back into the mirror and nodded satisfaction.

There was quite a crowd in the drug store, but Ed Wonder managed to find a seat at the fountain. Most of them were gathered around the magazine rack.

He knew the manager of the place and saw him standing nearby. “What’s going on?” Ed said.

The other said, “Never had such a turnover of comic books since I’ve been in the business. Practically sold out already, and it’s not even noon. Having more rushed in.”

“Comic books?”

“Uh huh. Something’s wrong with TV and even radio. One of the papers says it’s Soviet Complex sabotage. Some kind of scientific thing they got over in Siberia. Anyway, until they get it fixed nobody can watch TV. It’ll probably drive my wife and kids kooky, but while it still lasts I’m sure selling comic books.”

Ed said emptily, “They’re not going to get fixed. It’s going to stay this way.”

The manager looked at him. “Don’t be a twitch, Little Ed. You got to have TV.”

Ed didn’t want to argue. He gave one more look at the empty-faced adults packed around the comic book stands, then turned and dialed his meal and coffee. He kept his mind as clear as he could of the subject that was wriggling to get through. When he started thinking about it, he was afraid it was going to hurt.

However, when he had finished, he went back to the garages beneath his apartment building and got the Volkshover. He was probably looking for trouble, sheer trouble. But he drove over to Houston Street and the lot where Tubber and his daughter had had their tents pitched. The girl had said that the old man didn’t remember what he said in wrath, and evidently it was when he was in wrath that his curses came off. The thing to do was to deal with him in such manner as not to let him get stirred up. Maybe there was some way to reverse this whole thing. If he could pull it off, then would be the time to see about getting his job back.

The lot where the tents had been was empty.

Ed looked at it blankly. He might have remembered. They had been packing up to leave when he and Buzzo had braced Tubber about appearing on the program.

He thought about it for a minute. Finally he brought the Volkshover back into the air and headed for the Times-Tribune building. It was a bit past noon, but Buzzo’s hours were on the erratic side to say the least. There was as much chance to find him in during the lunch hour as any other time.

There seemed to be an unusual number of persons in the streets, most of them aimlessly milling around. There were long lines before the movie theatres.

By luck, Buzz De Kemp was at his desk in the city room. He looked up at Ed’s approach. Ed found a chair, reversed it, so that the back pressed against his jacket front when he straddled it. They looked at each other.

Ed said finally, “Did you run the story?”

Buzz shrugged and fished a stogie from a box out of a desk drawer. “I wrote it up. It’s on the eighth page of the morning edition. Somebody on rewrite thought it’d make a cute little gag piece, so he did a revision.” His voice turned wry. “Improved it considerably. More jollies.”

“So nobody believed you, eh?”

“Of course not. I gave up. Look at it the city editor’s way. Would you believe it?”

“No,” Ed said. “No, I wouldn’t believe it.”

They looked at each other for a time again.

Finally Ed cleared his throat and said, “I was just over at the lot where Tubber was holding his talks.”

“And…?”

“He’s gone. No sign of them left. I thought I might talk it over with him and his daughter. She seems to be lucid enough.”

Buzz thought about that. “Let’s go into the morgue,” he said finally, getting to his feet.

Ed Wonder followed him from the city room, down a corridor into another room presided over by an ancient who was unhurriedly clipping what was evidently a pile of yesterday’s edition of the Times-Tribune with an enormous pair of shears. He grunted something at Buzz who grunted something in return and hence they ignored each other.

Buzz De Kemp muttered, “Tubber,” and drew forth a deep file of folders. He fingered through them. “Tubber, Tubber, Ezekiel Joshua. Here it is.”

He brought forth a manila folder and led the way to a heavy table, sat down and opened it. There were three very short clippings, their dates penciled in on the top of each. Buzz scanned them quickly, handed each in turn to Ed Wonder.

He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Simple announcements of his meetings, extending back over several years. The location of his tent, what time the sermon begins. The title of his first sermon, Is the Nation Producing Itself Poor ? No information on where he came from or where he might be going.”

Ed Wonder said gloomily, “Jensen Fontaine thinks Tubber is a pseudonym.”

Buzz shook his head. “Not a name like that. Nobody but fond parents from the Bible belt would ever hang a moniker like that on a kid. Nobody’d do it to himself.”

“He said he wasn’t a Christian.”

“Maybe not, but his folks were. Probably evangelists. When he gets all wrathed up, he inadvertently starts talking like a Holy Roller, or whatever. He must’ve picked that up as a kid. Listen, Little Ed, how badly to you want to find him, and why? What happened to your mustache?”

Ed scratched where his tufts of mustache had been that morning. He muttered in self-deprecation, “Maybe now that I’m no longer a bright young career man, it’s not as important to look like one.”

Buzz De Kemp cocked his head at him and lit the stogie he’d been only fiddling with thus far. “That doesn’t sound like Little Ed Wonder,” he said.

“What does Little Ed Wonder sound like?” Ed said, snappishly.

Buzz grinned at him. “Usually like a heel on the make.”

“I don’t see how you manage to put up with me,” Ed snarled.

“I’ve wondered myself,” Buzz grinned. “Maybe it’s because I’m used to you. Ever notice how you put up with people you’re used to? For some reason, you hate to give up anybody you’ve really got to know.”

“So by the time you got to really know what a heel I was you were used to me and couldn’t bear to avoid me, eh?”

“Something like that. Tone down. Look, how bad do you want to locate old man Tubber?”

Ed never had been able to get really sore at Buzz De Kemp’s gibes, but even if he had, he wouldn’t have felt like it now. “I don’t know,” he grumbled. “I’m probably stupid. If he laid eyes on me, he’d probably lay down a hex that’d last like hemophilia. But I’ve been in on this since the beginning, it’s too late to try to duck out now.”

Buzz De Kemp eyed him. “What’s in it for you?” He blew smoke around the stogie without removing it from his mouth. “Beyond the death wish, I mean.”

“Oh, great. Funnies I get,” Ed muttered. “Nothing’s in it for me. What in the devil could there be in it?”

The newspaperman shook his head. “Sure doesn’t sound like Little Ed Wonder. Okay, so fine. I’ll get on it. Maybe there’ll be a birth record of Nefertiti, or a marriage record of the old boy, giving some idea of where they live. Maybe AP-Reuters will have something on him. Get out of here and check back with me later. I feel something like you do. In it from the beginning.”

Ed Wonder went down to the corner autobar with the idea of dialing himself a stiff one. His mind on Tubber and hexes, he wasn’t aware of the crowd until he was within a hundred feet of the bar’s entrance. His first impression was that there had been an accident, or, more likely still, in view of the magnitude of the mob, some act of violence. A shooting, or something.

It wasn’t that.

There was a policeman outside, lining up the crowd into a manageable queue. Inside, a juke box was at full blast.

“All right, everybody, all right. Stay in line,” the cop was singing out, and over and over again. “Stay in line or nobody’ll get in.”

Little Ed said, “What’s happened, Officer?”

The cop said, busily, “Get in line, buddy, get in line if you want a drink. Everybody’s gotta get in line.”

“Get in line for what ?” Ed stared at him.

“A drink, a drink. You’re allowed in for two drinks, or for half an hour, whatever comes off first. So get in line.”

“What the devil,” Ed blurted. “I don’t need a drink that bad.”

Somebody in the line took umbrage at that. “Oh, yeah,” he said savagely. “What’re ya gonna do, walk up and down the streets all day? The TV’s been on the blink since…”

Somebody else chimed in their disgust, and before he could get his complaint across, a heavier voice had drowned him out.

Ed went off, flabbergasted. It had only happened the night before. Less than twenty-four hours.

As he walked back to where he had parked the Volkshover, he noticed that it wasn’t only the autobars. Restaurants, ice cream parlors, drug stores, were all packed and overpacked, usually with lines out in front. All that had juke boxes had them tuned high. Proprietors were doing a land-office business, but Ed wondered where the money was coming from. Even under the welfare state, the average person didn’t have the wherewithal continually to patronize restaurants and bars.

He got into his hovercar and considered it for a while. Finally he brought the vehicle to life and headed for a destination. He had the address firmly enough in mind, but had never been there. The house located, he stood before the identity screen and fanned the alert.

A voice said, “Little Ed! Come on in, I’ll be right up.”

Ed opened the door, stepped in and navigated a few yards down an entry way to what was obviously a living room cum library. He was astonished by the layout. The room could have been a movie set depicting a home of yesteryear. There were some prints that Ed vaguely recognized from way back, but they certainly had no faintest resemblance to the current Surrealistic-Revival School that was currently in. You’d think that the owner had hung the things for… well, possibly because he liked them. You could get a reputation as a twitch awfully quick doing that sort of thing. And the chairs, tables, furniture. Right from an antique shop, several decades out of style.

A voice said, “Hi, friend. Come to see about Manny Levy for that swami show?”

Ed Wonder looked at his host, bringing his mind from his surprise at the bizarre room the other affected. “Swami?” he said blankly.

“The fire walker. You called a couple of days ago about a fire walker. What’s the matter with you, Little Ed? Remember me… Jim Westbrook? Sometimes panelist on the Far Out Hour, at a going rate of fifty dollars per appearance, cash in advance.”

Ed Wonder shook his head. “Listen,” he said. “Where’ve you been the last twenty-four hours?”

“Right here.”

“In this house?”

“Of course. I’ve been doing some concentrated work.”

“Haven’t you turned your TV set on?”

“I haven’t got a TV set.”

Ed Wonder stared at him as though the offbeat engineer had gone mad. “You haven’t got a TV set? Everybody’s got a TV set. How do you tune in on…”

Jim Westbrook said patiently, “I suppose if something came up I wanted to follow, I could wander over to some neighbor’s or friend’s. But, offhand, I can’t think of any such programs coming up for the past several years.”

Ed Wonder closed his eyes in pain. He opened them and said, “I don’t have time to go into it now, but, well, what do you do with your free time, listen to radio, go to the movies?”

“I don’t have any free time,” the other told him reasonably. “I get my rhabdomancy jobs once or twice a week. Then down in the cellar I’ve got my darkroom, electronics shop, woodworking shop, and I’m working up a small machine shop operation. Besides—”

“All right,” Ed said. “That’s enough. Already you sound like triplets.”

“Sit down and relax,” Jim said easily.

Ed looked around the room. He grimaced before sinking into one of the prehistoric-looking overstuffed chairs. Surprisingly, it was comfortable, no matter how kooky so far as style was concerned. It must have gone back to at least the 1950s.

“Listen, Jim, the swami who walks on coals is out—at least temporarily. You’ll find out why, later. Just now, I don’t have time to go into the detail I suspect you’d demand. What I came over to ask you is this. Are miracles possible?”

Jim Westbrook dropped into the chair opposite his guest, his face alert. “What kind of miracles?”

“Something effecting, well, everybody. Say, a universal curse.”

The engineer pursed his lips. “You know, one of the difficulties with these subjects is our terminology. Use a term such as miracle, or curse, or magic, and intellectual hackles immediately go up, as conditioned. But without getting into semantics, to answer your question, yes. There would seem to have been miracles, and, if so, there probably still are, or, at least could be.”

Ed held up a hand. “Now, wait a minute. Name just one.”

“You can have a dozen if you want. Moses parting the waters. Jesus feeding the multitudes with a few fish and seven loaves of bread.”

Ed said, in disappointment, “It’s debated whether or not either of them ever lived.”

Jim Westbrook shrugged. “The Moslems are just as convinced that Mohammed performed various miracles, and nobody would deny his historicity. Or take Saint Teresa, of Avila. She could evidently levitate. I suppose that would come under the head of miracle, or magic, to most of her contemporaries and most of ours. I just object to the terms. I thing that levitation is a, well, normal attribute of some persons. The fact that it is poorly understood doesn’t make it a miracle when someone such as, say, Saint Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, performs the act. Or, offhand, among others I can think of who could levitate were Saints Philip Benitas, Bernard Ptolomei, Dominic, Francis Xavier and Albert of Sicily. Then there was Savonarola, who was seen floating a couple of feet or so off his dungeon cell floor just before they burned him to death.”

“All of them religious fanatics,” Ed complained. “I don’t trust their witnesses. A fanatic religious crank can see anything when he’s keyed up. I’m an old hand, what with my program.”

His host twisted his mouth. “Well, then there was D. D. Home. His witnesses were far from religious cranks when they saw him float out of a window and then return through another one, ten stories off the ground. And Mrs. Guppy and the Reverend Stainton Moses, all fairly recent and all well checked upon by figures of prominence in the scientific world.”

Ed Wonder was unhappy. He rubbed the end of his nose with his left forefinger. He felt an urge to scratch his now nonexistent mustache.

Jim Westbrook looked at him, eyebrows slightly raised, waiting for the next.

Just to say something, Ed made a sweeping gesture to encompass the room. “What’re you trying to put over with this kooky room, Jim?” When the engineer didn’t seem to get the question, he added, “All this out of date furniture, no autobar, no TV, primitive art, if you can call it art, on the walls.”

Jim Westbrook said wryly, “Velazquez and Murillo weren’t exactly Cro-Magnon cavewall painters, Little Ed.”

“Yeah, but what do your friends think about all this twitchy layout?”

Westbrook considered him, his mouth twisted slightly in sour humor. “I don’t have a great many friends, real friends, these days, Little Ed. Those I do have, usually agree with me. They think this room is comfortable, which is the basic thing, and utilitarian, which is next. Beyond that…” he laughed “…at least some of them prefer Velazquez to the Surrealistic-Revival agonies of Jackson Salvadore.”

It came to Ed in a quick surprise that the heavy-set, alert engineer across from him didn’t particularly like Ed Wonder. It came as a surprise, because Ed had known the other for some years and had always got along with him. He’d had him on the Far Out Hour several times, since the man had a bent for offbeat subjects and seemed to be an authority on everything from parapsychology to space travel. Above all, he had a mischievous love of baiting scientific conventional wisdom and was a veritable Charles Fort in finding material with which to butcher the sacred cow.

He had always thought of Jim Westbrook as a friend, and only now did he know the other didn’t reciprocate. Before thought, he blurted, “Jim, why do you dislike me?”

The other’s eyebrows went up again and he held his silence for a long moment. Finally he said slowly, “It’s not the sort of question people usually ask, Little Ed. When they do, they seldom really want it answered.”

“No. Tell me.” Those words came out too, without volition.

Jim Westbrook leaned back in his chair. “All right, friend. The fact is I don’t dislike you. I’m neutral. You know what? You’re a stereotype, like practically everybody else. We’re becoming a nation of stereotypes. Everybody is a stereotype. Why in the world should all girls want to look like the current sex symbol, Brigitte Loren? But they do. The short and the fat and the tall. And all ambitious young businessmen want to look exactly the same, in their Brooks Brothers suits. They’re scared to death not to look exactly the same. They want to conform to the point where conformity becomes ludicrous. What in the hell has happened to our civilization? Remember when we had the term individuality? Rugged individualism? Now we’re frightened not to look exactly like the man next door looks, not to live in the identically same sort of house, drive the same kind of car.”

“So you think I’m just one more stereotype.”

“Yes.”

He had asked for it, but as the burly engineer had gone on, Ed Wonder had felt himself coming to a slow boil. Now he bit out, “But you’re not, of course.”

Jim Westbrook had to chuckle wryly. “I’m afraid calling a man a stereotype is something like telling him he has no sense of humor, that he isn’t a good driver, or that he’s a poor lover.”

Ed snapped, “Not to resort to an old wheeze, but if you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”

The other cut off his amusement and there seemed an air almost of compassion in what he said. “I am rich. About as rich as a person can get, because I’m doing what I want to do and have achieved or am achieving the things I find desirable. Or did you mean money? If you meant money, I have all I need. Probably if I devoted more time, especially if I devoted all of my time, to getting more, I could. But I haven’t enough time as it is to do all the things I want to do, so wouldn’t it be rather silly for me to spend any more time than necessary to chasing money?”

“I’ve heard that bit before,” Ed said. “But I’ve always noticed that those who have it on the ball, who are really smart, get up there on top.”

Jim Westbrook said gently, “I’m not disagreeing, friend, but it might be a question of what you consider the top. A chap named Lyle Spencer, who was president of the Science Research Associates at the time, did some research on intelligence quotients. He found that engineers and scientists of top ranking average about 135 in I.Q. Top business executives went to about 120. Spencer pointed out that most presidents of corporations weren’t as smart as their employees in their research departments. In fact, on averages they ranked under such mundane occupations as pharmacists, teachers, medical students, general bookkeepers, mechanical engineers and accountants. So evidently intelligence isn’t the prime ingredient in getting to the top, as you call it.”

Ed sneered, “Oh, great. So if somebody came along and offered you a half million, you’d say, ‘No thanks, I’m too smart. I’d rather be happy, playing with my darkroom and electronics shop, down in the basement.’ ”

The other laughed. “I didn’t say I’d refuse more money if it came along, Little Ed. I realize the advantages of having money. It’s just that I’m not going to spend the balance of my life pursuing the stuff at the price of giving up what I really value.” He came to his feet. “We don’t seem to be hitting it off any too well today, friend. What do you say we postpone matters until another time?”

It wasn’t too crude a brushoff, but brushoff it was. Disgusted more with himself than the other, Ed stood and started for the door. Jim Westbrook followed him. Evidently, the engineer hadn’t been in the slightest discomfited by the radioman’s words.

At the door, Ed turned and said, “Get a newspaper, or walk on over and talk to your nearest neighbors that have a TV set or radio. Maybe I’ll get in touch with you again later.”

“All right,” Westbrook said mildly.

The bars had been packed the night before, and the time you were allowed to remain, rationed. Ed Wonder had given up his hopes of sitting in one long enough to get an edge on, and the taste of what Jim Westbrook had said to him out of his mouth. It hadn’t tasted so good.

Not only had the bars been packed, but the streets as well. In all his memory, Ed Wonder couldn’t remember ever having seen the streets so thronged with pedestrians. They didn’t seem to have any place in particular to go. Just strolling up and down, aimlessly. The lines before the movie houses were so long as to be meaningless. Those toward the end couldn’t possibly have got inside until the following day.

Ed had gone back to his own apartment and sank into his reading chair. He grunted his contempt of the overstuffed antiques in Jim Westbrook’s establishment. Comfortable? Sure, but how kooky could you get?

Stereotype was he! The gall of the guy. Ed Wonder had worked his way up the hard way. He had accomplished practically straight “C”s in high school, even a few “B”s in such subjects as dramatics and gym. Sufficient grades to get him easily into college. It had been a rough row to hoe. The government subsidies had hardly covered his expenses. He’d had to drive a used car, eat at the university cafeteria, keep the same clothes until they all but showed signs of wear. Yes, Ed Wonder had obtained his education the hard way. Four years of such tough subjects as Dramatics, Debating, The Dance, Sex Techniques, and Togetherness.

Then the long years, fighting his way up. Not for Edward Wonder to go immediately from school onto the unemployment benefits. No, sir. He took temporary compensation while actually looking for employment. For ten years he had been on list at the theatres, the studios, the stations, trying to find parts. Of course, temporary compensaion paid off better than straight unemployment insurance. It meant that you were actually trying to find a job, which was enough to show, right there, that Ed Wonder was no stereotype. The very fact that he bothered to look branded him a kook in some eyes.

Then finally the switch over to radio and TV. He’d finally, through luck, a minimum of bribery, and the romancing of the fat wife of a studio executive, made his entry into the show business of the air.

Stereotype, eh? Then how had he finally got to the point of having his own program, the Far Out Hour?

He’d show them who was a stereotype.

Stereotype!

He’d shaved off his mustache, hadn’t he?

In the morning, Ed Wonder went on back to his auto-kitchen and dialed breakfast. He should bave been feeling off from his disappointment of the night before, but he wasn’t. He didn’t know why he wasn’t but there you were. The fact of the matter was, he felt all set to go. Somewhere. He didn’t know exactly where.

After he’d finished eating he threw the dishes into the disposal chute and went back into the living room.

He dialed the Unemployment Bureau, listed himself as temporarily unemployed, listed himself as available for work as a program director for TV or radio, applied for temporary compensation to be deposited directly to his account.

Then he dialed the Universal Credit Administration and applied for moritorium on all installment payments. Even as he did so, Ed Wonder reflected that whatever egghead economist had dreamed up the idea of moritorium had plugged one of the biggest potential holes in the workings of the affluent society. As never-never buying had pyramided, the powers that were had suffered increasingly sleepless nights over the possible consequences of even a fairly mild recession. Had foreclosures ever begun on a grand scale, the whole thing would have avalanched, and as used products flooded the markets, factories would have closed down all over the place, aggravating the recession still more. Yes, whoever had dreamed up credit moritorium had avoided that pitfall of classical capitalism. Of course, so long as you were on moritorium, you couldn’t run up any fresh installment credit, but you can’t have everything, even under the Welfare State.

Business finished with, he leaned back and considered matters. He was out of work. If the automated machinery of the Welfare State’s employment bureau found a potential position for him, he would be notified. Meanwhile, there was nothing to do. No point in going about haunting studios, or stations. They’d think he was a twitch if he went traipsing around on his own.

Well, you had to kill time some way. He reached out and flicked on the TV screen.

For the moment, he had forgotten. The screen was a horror of the abstract. He hurriedly cut it off again. Evidently, the stations were still trying. They simply weren’t getting through.

Just for the exercise, he went on down to the corner drugstore to pick up a paper. They were all gone. Happily, the manager had a copy of his own in a back room and let Ed take it.

There were still crowds around the magazine and paperback stands.

Ed said to the other, “Business in comic books still good, eh?”

“Oh, no,” the manager shook his head, beaming. “We’re fresh out of comic books, already. There’s no more in town. The agents say the presses are turning night and day, putting out extra editions, but for the time, we’re out. Now they’re buying paperbacks and magazines. Even all the more popular magazines are gone. There’s not a detective paperback left, either, and no westerns.” The smile left his face. “Good business, this emergency, but it sure is a horror to go home to the missus at night. We got nothing to do but yell at each other, and the kids go batty with nothing to watch.”

Ed Wonder took the paper back to his apartment before opening it.

The newspapers were evidently staging a comeback, and enjoying every minute of it. With TV and radio news off the airwaves, it was back to reading again.

The heads went:

He began to read the details and was interrupted almost immediately by the phone.

Buzz De Kemp’s face, stogie asmoke, filled the screen. “Hi, Little Ed. The great mystery has been solved.”

For a moment Ed Wonder thought he meant… but no. He said, “What mystery?”

“Where Zeke and Nefertiti disappeared to.”

“Oh,” Ed leaned forward.

Buzz drew it out. “I really gave it the works. Everything but the F.B.I. I checked…”

“All right, all right,” Ed snapped. “Let’s have it.”

“They moved up the river to the next town, Saugerties, and set up their tent again. Old Zeke is continuing his lecture tour.”

Ed closed his eyes wearily. He’d had a mental picture of Ezekiel Joshua Tubber escaping by stowing away on a ship to Brazil, or possibly fleeing to the Soviet Complex Embassy and requesting political refuge, or possibly going to earth somewhere and hiding out.

Instead, the offbeat evangelist was a few miles up the river, continuing as though nothing had happened.

6

Ed Wonder said, “Well, great. I’ll pick you up.”

“Hold on, chum,” the reporter took the stogie from his mouth to use as a pointer. “Maybe that old coot might be a little sore at you, but he’s really down on me. I was the one that sounded off and laughed at him. It was mostly me, on the program, who got him speaking in wrath, or however his daughter puts it. I think it might be better if just you show your cheerful face, at first.”

“Oh great. We’ll use me for baiting the tiger, eh?”

“It was your idea to find him again. You said you were in it from the beginning. Brave man. Stout fella.”

Ed growled, “You mentioned you were in it from the beginning too.”

“I was, and I’m going to keep in it, but from a distance, chum, from a distance. Now look, I haven’t even dared bring this up with Old Ulcers, the city ed, but you get the story on this exclusive for me and the Times-Tribune and we’ll find some way of showing our appreciation. This is a story, Little Ed. The story of the century.”

It only came home to Ed Wonder at that moment what a really big story it was. His mind flicked over into first. He could sell it to Look at Life, the picture magazine. He could sell it to…

His mind shifted back into low. No, he couldn’t. If Buzzo couldn’t even approach his city editor in a one horse town like Kingsburg, who was going to listen to Ed Wonder in Ultra-New York?

He suspected that of all those involved, the only ones who really knew that the Homespun Look and the disruption of both TV and radio were the results of curses by Tubber, were himself, Buzz and Helen. Except, of course, for Tubber himself, Nefertiti and some of the followers of the word, or whatever they called themselves.

Buzz said impatiently, “Well?”

Where he got the courage, Ed didn’t know, but he said, “Okay. I’ll go on up to Saugerties for whatever it’s worth. I’ll keep you posted. Remember, if this pays off, I’m in on the loot.”

The reporter rolled his eyes upward as though making solemn promise. “De Kemp always keeps faith,” he intoned.

“Yeah, sure,” Ed growled, reaching his hand out to switch off the phone.

Ed took the elevator down to the cellar garage and got the Volkshover, keyed it to life, lifted it half a foot from the floor, drifted up the ramp to the street, and headed north. The streets were more crowded than ever. He had never realized just how many persons lived in this city. In the far past, he supposed, the majority had spent the day hours working, the evening watching TV, listening to the radio, or taking in a movie. Of recent years, as the number of jobs decreased, until finally the employment rolls included a far greater number of citizens than did employment lists, the average citizen led a more sedentary existence. He had seen somewhere estimates that Mr. Average Man spent eight hours a day being entertained by mass media.

Well, a wheel had come off now.

He headed north at an altitude of about ten feet, and noticed that traffic was heavier than was to be expected at this time of day. It didn’t take long to figure out why. City dwellers on their way to the nearest water for a swim, or to the nearest woods for a picnic. Largely, their faces didn’t indicate that they were expecting any great treat. Probably because their portables weren’t working.

It came to Ed Wonder that such entertainment of yesteryear as swimming and picnicking had fallen off since he’d been a kid. In his day, youngsters still got a kick out of self-entertainment, swimming, baseball, fishing, hiking, camping. Now such exercise had a tendency to be avoided because it interfered with listening in on this favorite program or that. Go out on a camping trip and you might miss Robert Hope the Third’s Hour, or I’m Squirrel For Mary, not to speak of The Sadistic Tale. Of course, you could always take a portable along, but then you spent your time sitting around a campfire watching the shows, instead of in the comfort of your own home, where the mosquitos were apt to be less.

Fishing. He remembered going fishing with his father as a kid. And by himself, for that matter. He might wind up with nothing at all, or maybe a meager string of sunfish, but he’d thought it fun. Today, a kid got more of a boot out of watching somebody in the Gulf Stream or off the coast of Peru catching a half-ton marlin, or spearing a giant ray skin diving off the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. The vicarious thrill of playing a ten foot man-eating shark was evidently considerably more than tediously waiting for a four-inch sunfish to take your worm.

Saugerties was one of those never-changing New England type towns. Largely wooden houses. One storey, two storey, seldom more than three, even downtown. The type of overgrown village that made you wonder how it existed, its raison d’etre, why its population didn’t emigrate to more lively climes.

Ed Wonder let his little hovercar drift to a halt before the Thornton Memorial Theatre, which like the movie houses of his own town, had a long line before it. Near the curb stood three or four disgruntled citizens who had obviously decided that the line was so long it was hopeless to expect to gain entry.

Ed called, “Hey, Buddy, could you tell me where, ah, the Reverend Tubber has his tent set up?”

“Never heard of him,” Buddy said.

“How about you, Mac?” Ed said.

Mac screwed up his face. “You know, I did see something in the paper about some revival tent meeting or something. Hey, you know what? That’s something we could do. We could take in this here new revival.”

“Geez,” Buddy said, as though in hope. “You know what? I think I’ll get on home and round up the old lady and the kids and get over there before all the seats is taken.”

Ed said patiently, “Could you tell me where they’re set up?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mac said, evidently caught up with Buddy’s idea, and ready to take off himself. “Down there about three blocks, then turn right and keep going until you wind up at the park. You can’t miss it.” He said that final ritual over his shoulder as he hurried off.

Ed drove three down and then to the left and eventually came to the park. Buddy and Mac were going to be disappointed. There was already a long line standing before the Tubber tent. It was still early afternoon, but the line was there.

“Standing room only,” Ed muttered, hitting the drop lever. He wondered if Tubber was having a matinee. He parked and strode over to the entrance.

“Get in line, Jack. Take your turn,” somebody growled at him. Faces took him in antagonistically.

Ed said, hurriedly, “I’m not here to listen to the, ah, sermon. I…”

“Sure, sure, we know, sharpy. Just get in line, is all. I been standing here two hours. You try to sneak ahead of me and you get a bust in the puss, unnerstan?”

Ed felt his usual stomach tighening at the threat of physical violence and took a double step backward. He looked disconcerted at the three or four of the Tubber followers who were doing their harried best to keep order.

“The Speaker of the Word will be heard by all,” one was saying, over and over again. “He is shortening his talks to half an hour so that everyone may have a chance to listen, in relays. Please be patient. The Speaker of the Word will be heard by all.”

One of those in line grumbled, “Half an hour. You mean I been standing here all this time just for half an hour’s show?”

Ed Wonder said, “It’s not exactly a show, pal.” He walked away from the line. Trying to get in the front entrance would have taken hours. Besides, it was no manner in which to consult Tubber. He was going to have to confront the prophet, if that was what you’d call him, face to face. He was liking the prospect less by the minute.

He walked around to the rear of the large tent and found that, as before, there was a smaller tent pitched behind it. Ed Wonder hesitated. He drifted around behind the canvas habitation. There was an old-fashioned farm wagon there and a horse quietly grazing.

He took a breath consciously, and returned to the entrance. How do you knock on the door of a tent?

He cleared his throat and called out, “Anybody home?”

He could hear a stirring inside and then the flap separated and Nefertiti Tubber was there.

She looked at him and flushed. “Good afternoon, dear one,” she said. Then, in a gush, “Oh, Ed, I’m sorry about the other night. I—I should have known better than to let father…”

“Sorry,” he said bitterly. “So’s the whole world. Listen, do you know what’s happened?” She nodded dumbly. “I’ll tell you what’s happened,” he began.

She looked quickly around them, then held back the tent flap. “Please come in, Ed.”

He followed her. The rent was surprisingly large and laid out comfortably into three rooms, two of which had flapped entries of their own. The equivalent of bedrooms, Ed decided. The larger space was a combination kitchen, living and dining room, and even went to the extent of a rug being on the ground. A rag rug, homemade, of the type that Ed Wonder hadn’t seen since early childhood.

There were folding chairs about the table and Nefertiti hesitantly gestured to one of them. Ed sat down and looked at her. The fact that Ezekiel Joshua Tubber himself wasn’t present gave him courage.

He said accusingly, “Every TV and radio station in the world is on the blink.”

She nodded. “I just found out an hour or so ago. I went into town for some supplies from a follower of the path who resides not in Elysium.”

Ed let that part of her statement that sounded like straight kookery go by and stuck to the first sentence. “Did you see all those people in the streets?”

She nodded dumbly.

“How long’s this been going on?”

She knew what he meant all right, all right.

“You mean… the power? The power to breathe the word?”

Ed Wonder closed his eyes in weary pain. “Let’s drop the twitchy language for the moment. What is it your father does?”

She looked at him as’ though nothing could be more obvious. “He exercises the power and utters the word. But usually, of course, only when he is in wrath. You and your friend, Buzz De Kemp, brought him to wrath. Just as Helen Fontaine did, before.”

“It’s as simple as that, eh?” Ed said sarcastically.

“Don’t be angry, dear one.” She frowned, in puzzlement. “It has never been so sweeping, before.” Her face cleared. “Perhaps, he has never been so provoked in the past.”

“But look, how can he do these things?”

“But he’s the Speaker of the Word, the guru of the Path to Elysium, and the beloved of the All-Mother.”

“Oh, great,” Ed muttered, in suffering. “Ask a silly question and get a silly answer.”

Involuntarily, he put out a hand and rested it on her arm. “Now look, Nefertiti, this is important…”

Her eyes narrowed slightly and her mouth seemed to go sweetly slack. He jerked his hand back.

“Pardon me!”

Her voice was throaty, “It was all right.”

He cleared his own throat. He wondered how old Nefertiti Tubber was. It came to him that the girl had possibly never had a man touch her before. Not a man of her own age group.

“Look,” he said again. “I keep getting the impression every time I get talking with you people that I came into the conversation half a dozen sentences late. Now just what is it that your old man… that is, your father, wants to accomplish? What’s this stuff about the Communists being too mild for him. Not radical enough?”

A voice behind him said, “Ah, we have a visitor.”

Ed winced, expecting a thunderbolt between the shoulders. He turned.

The man who stood there, his face in the ultimate of understanding and sadness, looked about as dangerous as a Michelangelo depiction of the Virgin nursing the Child.

Ed Wonder, nevertheless, scrambled to his feet. “Ah, good afternoon, sir… Ooop, pardon me, not sir, ah, Ezekiel, ah, dear one.”

“Good afternoon, Edward.” The grey-bearded prophet beamed at him. “You seek further enlightment on the path to Elysium?” The older man sank with a sigh into one of the folding chairs. Evidently he bore no grudges whatsoever about the hassle of the other night.

Nefertiti had come to her feet too. Now she brought her father a glass of water which she had dipped out of a bucket. She walked, Ed Wonder noted, in spite of himself, as Malay women he’d seen on travelogue shows walked; head and shoulders proudly erect, the hips swaying gently.

“Well, ah, yes,” Ed said hurriedly. “Fascinating subject. The way I get it, you’re heading for a sort of Utopia. A…”

Ezekiel Joshua Tubber frowned. “Dear one, you have failed to understand the word. We seek not Utopia. Utopia is supposedly the perfect society and anything perfect has automatically ceased growing, hence the conception of Utopia is conservative if not reactionary. That is the mistake of many, including the so-called Communists. They think that once their promised land has been achieved, all progress will stop, that the millennium will have been reached. Nonsense! The All-Mother knows no stopping. The path to Elysium is forever!”

For a while there, Ed Wonder had thought he was following the old boy, but toward the end it had degenerated into gibberish.

However, Ed Wonder had dealt with twitches before. The fact that this one had the most far out abilities that the radio man had ever run into was beside the point. Twitch he was. Ed said placatingly, “Yeah, well, the way you put it makes a lot of sense. Utopia is reactionary.”

Tubber looked at him questioningly.

“I see, dear one, that possibly your motive for visiting us might be other than interest in the path.” He smiled benignly and looked at Nefertiti, who hadn’t taken her eyes from Ed Wonder during all this. She flushed. The girl, Ed decided, seemed to be in almost perpetual blush. She couldn’t be as shy as all that.

Tubber said gently, “Could it be that you have come to spark my daughter?”

Gently it might have been said, but Ed Wonder barely managed to keep his seat. All instincts told him to be up. Up and away!

“Oh, no…” he protested. “Oh…”

“Father!” Nefertiti said.

Ed didn’t look at her. He suspected that Nefertiti Tubber was the color of new bricks, if she could go pink just looking at a man. He stuttered, “Oh, no. No. I just came about the television, the radio.”

Ezekiel Joshua Tubber was frowning, though such was his face that it came over more kindly than might have another man’s smile. He said sadly, “How unfortunate. Truly, the All-Mother’s path to Elysium is brightened by the romancing of our young. And I fear that such is the life I lead my Nefertiti that she loses the opportunity to meet pilgrims of her own age.” He sighed and said, “But what is this about television and radio? As you know, Edward, I have little sympathy with the direction our mass media have taken of recent years.”

Ed was finding courage in the other’s quiet manner. Tubber seemed to carry no grudge at all due to the fiasco at the station the other night. Ed said, “Well, you didn’t have to take it to such extreme. This lack of sympathy.”

Tubber was puzzled. “I don’t believe I understand, dear one.”

Ed said impatiently, “The curse. The curse you put on television and radio. Holy smokes, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten you did it!”

Tubber’s eyes, bewildered, went from Ed to Nefertiti. She sat there, her wrapt concentration on Ed waning slightly as apprehension began to grow.

She said, “Father, you have probably forgotten, but you became distraught the other night on Ed’s radio program. You… called upon the power to curse it.”

Ed blurted, “And now there’s not a TV or radio station in the world still operating.”

Tubber looked at the two of them, blankly. “You mean that I called down wrath upon these admittedly perverted institutions and… it worked ?”

“It worked, all right,” Ed said glumly. “And now I’m out of a job. Several million people in the industry, in one part of the world or another are out of jobs.”

“All the world?” Tubber said, amazed.

“Oh, father,” Nefertiti protested. “You know you have the power. Remember the young man who continually practiced his hillbilly music on his guitar?”

Tubber was staring fascinatedly at Ed Wonder. He said to his daughter, “Yes, but breaking five guitar strings at a distance of a few hundred feet is certainly nothing…”

Nefertiti said, “Or the neon sign that you complained made your eyes feel as though they were about to pop out.”

Ed said, “You mean you didn’t know it worked? That you cursed radio and now there’s not a station, radio or TV, that isn’t on the blink?”

Tubber said, in awe, “The powers the All-Mother can delegate are indeed wondrous.”

“They’re wondrous all right,” Ed said bitterly. “But the thing is, can you reverse them? People are getting desperate. Why, in a little town like this, thousands are roaming the streets with nothing to do. Why even a little tent meeting like yours is packed to the limit and…”

He let the sentence dribble away. The face of Ezekiel Joshua Tubber had suddenly gone empty, tragically empty.

Tubber said, “You mean… dear one… that the large crowds I have suddenly been attracting—the capacity audiences so that I must hold a dozen talks a day. They appear…”

Ed said bitterly, “They appear because they haven’t any place else to go and be entertained.”

Nefertiti said in soft compassion, “Father, I was going to tell you. Multitudes of people are roaming up and down the streets. They are desperate for amusement.”

Tubber’s homely face, broken for a moment, was now slowly regaining strength. “Amusement!”

Ed said, “Ezekiel, don’t you see? People have to do something with their time. They want to be entertained. They want to have a little fun. That’s reasonable, isn’t it? They like radio, they like TV. You can’t stop them. So, okay, they don’t know what to do with themselves. They’ve got to have some way to kill time.”

“Kill time! Kill time!” Tubber rumbled. “Killing time is not murder, dear one. It is suicide! We are committing racial suicide with our meaningless, empty lives. Man must resume the path to Elysium, not seek methods of wasting life away!”

Ed said, “Yeah, but don’t you see, ah, dear one? People don’t want to listen to your message. They’re well, conditioned. They want to be entertained. And you can’t stop them. Okay, take away their TV and radio and…”

Even as he spoke, caught up in the argument, Ed Wonder knew he had already said too much. Ezekiel Joshua Tubber was swelling in anger.

“Yes?” he thundered. “Take away their TV and radio and what will they do?”

Ed tried to cut it off, but the old man’s strength gripped him almost as though physically. Gripped him and demanded. He said, “And they’ll turn to things like movies.”

“Oh, they will!”

Ed Wonder closed his eyes in pain.

A new voice broke in. “There is a fresh audience, dear one. We have ushered the last group from the tent, and a new one awaits you to hear the expounding of the word.”

Ed looked up. It was one of the faithful, whom he had noticed earlier at the entrance to the main tent.

Tubber stood erect, some seven feel tall, Ed Wonder estimated. At least seven feet tall, and pushing three hundred pounds.

“Ah, they do, do they? Well, verily, hear the word they shall!”

Ed Wonder, stricken dumb, looked at Nefertiti. She sat there, elbows tight against her side, as though in feminine protest at the masculine psychic power emanating from her father.

The prophet stormed from the tent.

Ed looked back at the girl again. All he could think of to say was, “I’m glad I didn’t mention carnivals and circuses.”

Nefertiti shook her head. “Father loves circuses,” she said.

They sat there for a time, waiting. Neither knew for how long. In their silence, they could hear sounds from the larger tent, and finally the swelling thunder of Tubber’s voice.

Nefertiti began to say something, but Ed interrupted her. “I know,” he said. “He’s speaking in wrath.”

She nodded silently.

The voice reached a pitch.

Ed said, “The power.” He added, dismally, “I was looking forward to seeing that production, Ben Hur Rides Again.”

He had guessed right. Oh, he had guessed right, all right.

The proof came as he tooled the little Volkshover back into Kingsburg. For the first time in his life, Ed Wonder came upon a lynch mob. A shouting, screaming, hate-smelling crowd milling about in the ever confusion of the mob. Screaming for someone to get a rope. Screaming to go to the park to find the limb of a tree. Counterscreaming that a lamppost would do. Somewhere in the center, a mewling, fear-overcome victim was struggling in the grasps of a wild-faced, glaring-of-eye trio who seemed the leaders of the riot, if a lynch mob can be said to have leaders.

Ed could have lifted above the demonstration and gone on. All his instincts, all his fear of physical violence told him to get away from the vicinity immediately, to get away but fast, to personal safety. But the sheer fantasy of the action held him in fascination. He dropped to the street level and stared.

There must have been fully five hundred of them, and their rage was a frenzy, The yelling and shouting, the shrilling from the women members of the mob—all of it made no sense.

Ed shouted to a passing participant of the demonstration, “What the devil’s going on! Where’s the police!”

“We run the police off,” the raging pedestrian screamed back at him, and was gone.

Ed Wonder continued to stare.

Somebody said, “The natives are restless tonight, eh? Come on, Little Ed, let’s get in there. They’ll kill that poor idiot.”

Ed swiveled his head. It was Buzz De Kemp. He looked back at the screaming crowd again. “You think I’m completely around the bend?” His stomach had tightened in terror at the very idea of getting nearer to the raging.

“Somebody’s got to help him,” Buzz growled. He pulled the stogie from his mouth and threw it into the gutter. “Here goes nothing.” He started for the mob.

Ed Wonder vaulted over the side of the hovercar and took a few steps after him. “Buzzo! Use your head!” The other didn’t look back. He disappeared into the swirling crowd.

Ed grabbed a bystander who seemed a fellow observer of the scene, rather than a participant.

“What’s happened!” Ed demanded.

From the distance came the ululations of fire sirens.

The other looked at Ed, brushed his hand away. “Movie projectionist,” he shouted, above the roar. “Folks standing in line for hours, then he fouls up the projector and claims he can’t fix it.”

Ed Wonder stared at him. “You mean they’re hanging that man because his projector broke down? Nobody’s that kooky!”

The other growled, defensively, “You don’t know, buddy. Everybody’s like on edge. These folks were standing for hours to see this here new show. And that lamebrain louses up the movie machine.”

Something he was going to find difficult to explain for the rest of his life happened to Ed Wonder. Something snapped. His mind, suddenly empty of the fear of the crowd, urged him into an action he wouldn’t have dreamed of two minutes earlier. He began pushing through the mob after Buzz De Kemp, trying to get to the center.

He could hear himself yelling at the top of his voice: “It’s not his fault! It’s not his fault! It’s like the TV and radio. It’s all over the world. Every movie projector in the world is on the blink. It’s not his fault! All movies don’t work! All movies don’t work!”

Somehow, impossibly, he struggled his way to the screaming crowd’s middle where the three burly mob leaders were dragging their victim in the direction of the nearest lamppost. By this time, a rope had been found.

He could feel his voice cracking as he tried to make himself heard above the mob’s roar. “It’s not his fault! All movies don’t work!”

One of the mob leaders backarmed him into a sprawl. He wondered vaguely where Buzz De Kemp was, even as he pushed himself back to his feet and grabbed at the fear-paralyzed movie projectionist. “It’s not his fault! All movies don’t work!”

It was then that the pressurized water hit them.

7

Helen Fontaine and Buzz De Kemp bailed him out toward noon of the next day.

Buzz came back to the cell first, one of the new Poloroid-Leicas in his hands and wearing a grin behind his stogie. There was an adhesive plaster patch above his right eye which only managed to make the sloppy newsman look rakish.

“Buzzo!” Ed Wonder blurted. “Get me out of here!”

“Just a minute,” Buzz told him. He adjusted the lens aperture, brought the camera to his eyes, flicked the shutter three or four times. He said happily, “With any luck I’ll get you on the front page. How does this sound? Local radioman leads lynch mob.”

“Oh, bounce it, Buzz,” Helen Fontaine said, coming up from behind him. She looked in at Ed Wonder and shook her head critically. “Whatever happened to the haberdasher’s best friend?” she said. “I never expected to see the day when Little Ed Wonder’s tie wasn’t straight.”

“Okay, okay, funnies I get,” Ed rasped. “Follow me, says Buzz De Kemp and we’ll rescue the movie projectionist like the cavalry coming over the hill at the last minute. So great. He sort of disappears and I wind up getting drenched by the fire department and then arrested by the police.”

Buzz looked at him strangely. “I heard you yelling, Little Ed. About all movie projectors being on the blink. How did you know? It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes earlier that it happened. The news wasn’t even on the teletype yet.”

“Get me out of here,” Ed snarled. “How do you think I knew? Don’t be a kook.”

A uniformed jail attendant came up and unlocked the cell door. “Come on,” he said. “You been sprung.”

The three of them followed him out.

Buzz said, “So you were there when he laid on the new curse, eh?”

“New curse?” Helen said.

Buzz said to her, “What else? Ezekiel Joshua Tubber. First he gives all women an allergy if they wear cosmetics or do themselves up in glad rags. Then he slaps his hex on radio and TV. Now all of a sudden there is a strange persistence of film being projected on a screen; it takes an eighth of a second or so for the picture to fade, so the next picture can be different. It doesn’t interfere with still-life shots, but action is impossible.”

They had reached the sergeant’s desk and Ed collected his belongings. His situation was explained. Theoretically, he was out on bail. In actuality, Buzz was going to go to bat for him through the paper and get the charge squashed. If, by any chance, that didn’t work, Helen said she’d put pressure on her father to pull some wires. Ed was of the private belief that the only circumstance under which Jensen Fontaine would pull wires for Ed Wonder was if they were wrapped around his neck.

On the street, Buzz said, “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

“Somewhere is good,” Ed said. “You can’t get in anyplace for love or loot. Standing room only and they limit the time you can stay, so that others will have their chance.”

Helen said, “We can go to the club. I’ll take you in as guests.”

Her General Ford Cyclone was at the curb. They got into it and Helen dialed their destination. The car rose and slipped into the traffic.

Buzz De Kemp stared out at the horde of wandering pedestrians. “Yesterday was bad enough,” he said. “But today there’s no school. The kids don’t know what to do with themselves.”

“Neither do their parents,” Helen said. “Doesn’t anybody work in this city? I’d think…”

“Do you?” Ed said, for some reason irritated.

“Well, that’s another thing, sharpy,” she said huffily. “I have my charity work with the junior league and…”

Buzz said, “I looked it up. Two thirds of the population of working age in Kingsburg are on unemployment lists. Of those remaining, most put in a twenty-five hour week, some of those with more progressive—I like that term—unions, put in twenty hours.” He tossed his stogie, half-smoked, onto the street. “It makes for a lot of leisure time.”

The country club was a couple of miles outside the city limits. If Helen Fontaine had expected it to be comparatively empty, she was mistaken. She was far from the only one to bring guests to the club. However, they managed to slip into chairs about a table which was just being vacated as they arrived. Helen brought her credit card from her purse and laid it on the table’s screen. “Gents, the eats are on me. What’ll it be?”

They named their druthers, she dialed them, and when the food arrived and the first taste had been taken, said, “Okay, let’s bring the meeting to order. I’m not up on this movie thing.”

Ed Wonder gave them a complete rundown on the happenings in Saugerties. By the time he wound it up, they were both staring at him.

“Oh, Mother,” Helen said. “You mean, until you told him, he didn’t even know he’d done it. Radio and TV, I mean.”

Buzz said, “Remember on the program? He had forgotten he put the hex on women’s vanity.” He looked at Helen Fontaine calculatingly. “You know, on you the Homespun Look comes off.”

“Thank you, kind sir. If I could think of something about your own appearance that I could say something nice about, I would. Why don’t you get a haircut?”

“Compliment the girl, and what do I get?” Buzz complained. “A jolly. I can’t afford a haircut. I’m the most improvident man in the world. I’ve been known to go into a cold shower and come out three dollars poorer.”

Ed said gloomily, “I admit I let the cat out of the bag. Now he knows.” They scowled at him and he explained. “Tubber. Now he knows he’s got the power, as Nefertiti calls it. What’s worse, it seems to be growing.”

“What seems to be growing?” Buzz growled at him.

“The power to make with hexes. Evidently, he’s always had it, but only just recently has he been using it on the grand scale.”

“You mean…” Helen said, ramifications dawning.

“I mean his first two major hexes he pulled off in a rage and without knowing what he was doing. This last one he did on purpose. Now he knows he can do them on purpose.”

Ed said, “Have you two considered the fact that we’re the only ones in the world, except for Tubber’s little group, who know what’s going on?”

Buzz pulled out a fresh stogie and rammed it into his mouth. “How could I forget it? A newspaperman sitting on the biggest story since the Resurrection and he can’t even write it. If I mention Tubber and his curses to Old Ulcers once more, he’s promised to fire me.”

“At least you’ve still got a job,” Ed told him sourly. “Look at me. I spend a couple of years working up the Far Out Hour, a program devoted to spiritualism, ESP, flying saucers, reincarnation, levitation, and what not, and for all that time I have an endless series of cranks, crackpots and crooks as guests. So finally, a real phenomenon comes along. And what happens? I’m out of a career.”

“Both of you are breaking my heart,” Helen said snappishly. “Don’t forget, I was runner-up on the Statewide ten best dressed women of the year poll.”

Buzz looked at her. “How about your father? He was there when Tubber hexed radio. Doesn’t he realize what’s going on?”

Helen said, “I think about half and half. What he really thinks is that Tubber is an agent for the Soviet Complex who’s been sent over to sabotage American industry. He wants the Stephen Decatur Society to investigate and place their information before the F.B.I. Matthew Mulligan agrees with him, of course.”

Ed Wonder closed his eyes to hide his suffering. “Oh, great. I can just see that bunch of kooks sniffing around Tubber’s tent. The new hexes would start flying like geese.”

Helen said, without a good deal of conviction. “The Society isn’t composed of kooks, as you call them.”

Buzz leered at her through the smoke of his newly lighted stogie. “What is it composed of?”

She laughed suddenly, “Twitches,” she said.

Buzz looked at her afresh. “I think I could learn to like you,” he said, nodding.

“All right, all right,” Ed said. “We’ve got to do something. You both realize that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Buzz said. “What?”

Helen said, worriedly, “Perhaps if we all went to see Tubber…”

Ed held up a hand. “Go no further, please. Here sit the three of us. Helen brought him to wrath and the result was the Homespun Look and what will eventually mean the collapse of the cosmetic and women’s textile industries. Buzzo brought him to wrath and the result was the end of radio and TV. Through a fluke, I said too much and as a result he brought himself to wrath and wound up the movie industry. With a background like that do you think any of we three ought ever to let him lay eyes on us again? We seem to be a set of accident prones, with the whole human race getting the benefits.”

Buzz growled around his stogie, “I think you’re right, chum.”

“But we’ve got to do something,” Helen protested.

“What?” Buzz said to the unanswering group.

They had left it at that. All three resolved that something had to be done. But no one had come up with even the smallest idea.

Ed finally left them to that solution of the problem and took a cab to where he had left the Volkshover the night before. It seemed to have survived the mob and the wetting down from the fire hoses which had finally broken up the enraged crowd and led to the rescue of the hapless movie projectionist.

On the scene again, Ed could only wonder at the hysteria of a citizenry that could become that worked up over a simple matter such as not being able to see the movie for which they had stood in line. What the devil, this was the tail end of the 20th Century, not frontier days. You didn’t lynch a man because you suspected him of lousing up your evening’s entertainment.

Or did you?

What had the rioter said to him? Everybody’s on edge.

It didn’t make too much sense to Ed Wonder. Admittedly, he was thoroughly familiar with the world of radio and TV and knew the dependence of most citizens on the entertainment they provided. But Ed Wonder had been a performer, rather than a passive viewer and, at least subconsciously, was contemptuous of his audiences. He viewed TV himself, only as part of his work, in common with his colleagues.

Back at his own apartment house, he remembered to go to the drug store for a newspaper before ascending to his rooms. The manager had saved a paper for him, otherwise, as the day before, the morning edition of the Times-Tribune was sold out.

He showered, utilized his No-Shav cream, and dressed in fresh clothes, and then, before sitting down to read, he dialed himself a glass of ale. The autobar failed to respond and he scowled down at it. The gadget was designed for a variety of forty different drinks, and operated through a distribution center which served this part of the city in much the same manner as his kitchenette worked. He tried dialing a Fish House Punch with the same results.

Irritated, he went to the phone and dialed the center. A harassed ash blonde appeared on the screen and before he could open his mouth, said hurriedly, “Yes, we know. Your autobar is failing to function. Unfortunately, stocks have run short due to unprecedented demand. New supplies are being rushed up from Ultra-New York. Thank you.” She flicked off.

Ed Wonder grunted and sat down in his reading chair. Unprecedented demand, yet. Well, it wasn’t surprising. With nothing else to do, people had upped their drinking considerably.

The paper had no inkling of the real nature of the blight on the world’s entertainment media. None whatsoever. Evidently, Buzz De Kemp was the only journalist exant who realized the actuality, and his city editor had ominously warned him not to mention Ezekiel Joshua Tubber and his curses ever again. AP-Reuters and the other news services hadn’t a clue. Learned articles and columns pursued this theory and that, ranging from sun spots, or radio emanations from far star systems, to sinister schemes on the part of the Soviet Complex or Common Europe to disrupt America’s balance by withholding needed restful entertainment from the man in the street. Just how this was being accomplished was moot. Those who argued against the charge, pointed out that the same disruption was taking place throughout the realm of the Soviet Complex and throughout Common Europe as well.

In fact, if anything, the problem was already greater in some lands than it was in the United Welfare States of America. England, for instance. There were riots in London, Manchester and Birmingham. Evidently they were senseless, meaningless riots, not directed toward anyone or anything in particular. Simply the rioting of crowds of people with nothing to do.

Ed Wonder felt a cold apprehension edge up his spine. He had seen that mob the night before. In fact, he had been manhandled by it.

He had skimmed quickly through the paper looking for the story of the lynch mob who had all but finished off the unhappy movie projectionist who had been blamed for the failure of the film. He had trouble, to his amazement, finding the item. Ed would have thought it called for front page coverage, in a town no larger than Kingsburg. It was probably the only attempted lynching in the city’s history. But no, it was buried in the inside and the story passed over more as a joke than a serious affair in which hundreds had been sprayed with high pressure fire hoses and police brought in by the dozen to quell the fury.

Ed got it. The story was deliberately being played down. The city fathers, or whoever, didn’t want to bring to the attention of the populace how easy—and perhaps how entertaining—it was to riot. Face reality, during the height of the trouble last night, that mob was having the time of its collective life—men, women and teenagers.

He went back to the front page. The president had made with some sort of gobblydygook explanation of the disruption of TV and radio. He hadn’t gotten to the movies yet. When he did, that was going to be a dilly. Sun spots to foul up TV reception? Sure. Possible. Or strong radio emanations from space? Well, yes. Possible. But movies? How were they going to explain the fact that movies no longer flickered in their well-established way?

Ed shook his head. He was just as glad he wasn’t chief executive of the United Welfare States of America. That job President Everett MacFerson could have.

There was another item from Greater Washington. A plea on the part of the White House for all retired actors, circus performers, vaudeville veterans, musicians, singers, carnival attractions and all others however remotely attached to show business, and however long ago, to report to the auditorium of the nearest high school. There was a barb on the end of the plea. Failure to comply would automatically cancel any unemployment insurance benefits being enjoyed by those involved.

Ed Wonder rubbed the end of his nose with a thoughtful forefinger. That would include him. He would have to report. The conclusions were obvious. The radio-TV curse had only come about a few days ago, but already Greater Washington was deciphering handwriting on the wall. Ed wondered uneasily just how bad those riots in England had been.

He went into his kitchenette and dialed himself a lunch. It tasted nothing, in spite of the fact that he hadn’t had a decent meal since the day before. He threw it, half-eaten, into the disposal chute.

He began to think about Helen. Strange about Helen. Somehow, these past few days had altered his feelings about her. He liked her fine enough, but there was no urgency about it. One week ago and she had been the most important single matter on his mind.

He took the elevator down to the street. This was a new development. There was a crowd outside the liquor store and a fat tub of a man standing in the doorway itself explaining something or other. When Ed Wonder got nearer, he got the message.

“Sorry folks, not a thing left. Sold out. Waiting for new deliveries.”

“Well, how about gin or rum?” somebody called to him.

“No, I mean everything. Whiskey, gin, rum, brandy. Everything. All sold out.”

“Nothing at all?” Somebody else said incredulously.

The proprietor was apologetic. “All I got is a few bottles of Creme de Menthe.”

“What’s that?” the inquirer grumbled. “Is there alcohol in it?”

“It’s a cordial,” Ed told him. “Sweet and tastes like peppermint. Not quite as strong as whiskey.”

“How would it mix with Coke?” somebody else said.

Ed closed his eyes and shuddered.

“Well, I’ll take a bottle. I gotta have something around the house. It’s driving me batty.” The speaker had no need to mention what it was that was driving him batty.

“Let me have one too.”

The group pushed in. The fat proprietor said hastily, “Only one bottle to a customer, folks. I only got a few bottles left. And you got to realize this is special stuff. Fifteen bucks a bottle.”

Ed Wonder walked back in the direction of his apartment.

On the corner a crowd was gathered. He came closer and stood on tiptoes to make out their interest. There was a trio of kids in the center, doing tricks, minor tumbling tricks. The crowd watched them glumly, although every once in a while somebody would call out encouragement. From time to time the youngsters would be tossed a coin or two. The repertoire was strictly limited.

It reminded Ed that he was going to have to go to the nearest high school and report as an unemployed member of show business. He did that the next day. It didn’t take him long. There weren’t as many actors, musicians and show folk in general as there once had been. And evidently no vaudeville, circus or carnival veterans at all in Kingsburg. Automation had come to the world of entertainment as well as to every other field. Given TV and a comparative handful can entertain two hundred million persons at once, where in the old days of vaudeville a couple of thousand at a time was maximum. Given movies and a dozen actors can perform a play for the million mass, while in the day of the legitimate theatre a few hundred at most could follow the show. Given radio, a pop singer’s voice could become known on a worldwide basis, while a nightclub singer of old could bring alcoholic sobs to the occupants of a few score tables at best. And musicians? But here automation had reached its ultimate with the canned music of record and tape.

No, there weren’t as many show business folk as there had been even a decade ago, not to speak of a quarter century or more.

Ed proved a disappointment when his turn for interview came up. They took down in detail all that he had ever done, and evidently decided it was precious little that would benefit them.

Did he think that he could act as an M.C. for vaudeville shows?

Ed Wonder sighed. Yes, he thought he could.

They’d keep in touch with him.

He left and climbed back into his hovercar.

He had to do something. Over and over it came back to him that he, Buzzo and Helen were the only three outside the Tubber circle who actually knew what was going on.

A boy with a heavy stack of papers under his arm was yelling an extra. It came to Ed that it had been a very long time since he had heard a newsboy shouting extra. Radio and TV news commentators had put an end to that newspaper institution of old.

He made out what the boy was shouting. Race riots, somewhere or other. He didn’t have to read the paper to get the picture. Bored people wandering up and down the streets with nothing to do.

Race riots. He wondered how long it would be before people got around to religious riots. Riots between races, riots between different religious creeds, riots over politics. It gave you something to take up time, didn’t it?

He simply had to do something. There must be some starting point. He changed his direction. He drove out along the road to the south and eventually pulled onto the university grounds.

He was in luck and had no difficulty in finding Professor Varley Dee in his office at the Department of Anthropology. Ed Wonder had had the crisp anthropologist on the Far Out Hour several times as a panelist, but had never met him before on his home grounds.

He chuckled at Ed Wonder even as he offered him a chair. “Well, sir, even the ambitious Little Ed Wonder finds himself amid the unemployed with the disruption of the radio waves, eh? Fascinating development. Have the technicians arrived at any conclusions? What’s this about sun spots?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Ed told him. “Every time something comes along to foul up reception, or the weather, or whatever, it’s blamed on sun spots. That’s all I know about the subject.” Actually, he didn’t want to get into the subject of TV reception with the professor. If he had, they would never gee around to the real reason for his visit.

He changed the subject, abruptly, “Look, Professor, what can you tell me about Jesus?”

Dee gimlet-eyed him. “Just who do you mean when you say Jesus?”

Ed was exasperated. “For crissake, Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth. Born on Christmas. Died on the cross. The founder of Christianity. Who else could I mean?”

“There are Jesuses and Jesuses, Little Ed. According to what religious sect you follow, or if you follow none at all and are interested in the historic Jesus. Do you want myth, or history?”

“I’m talking about reality. The real Jesus. What I…”

“All right. Then to begin with, his name wasn’t Jesus. His name was Joshua. Jesus is a Greek name, and he was a Jew. And he wasn’t from Nazareth. There was no such town as Nazareth in Palestine at that time; later on the boys worked that one in to fill in some holes in the prophesies that supposedly foretold the coming of the Messiah. And he wasn’t born on Christmas. The early Christians took over that day from the pagans in one of the attempts to popularize the new religion. Christmas was originally the winter solstice, it got shoved around to December 25th through faulty calendars. It’s even debatable whether Joshua died on the cross. If he did, then he died in a remarkably short time. The horror of crucifiction as a means of execution is in the time it takes the victim to die. Robert Graves made a good case for the hypothesis that Jesus survived the cross, after a cataleptic fit, and was spirited away.”

Ed was bug-eyeing him.

Varley Dee said, his voice cranky, “You wanted to know about the historic Jesus. Very well. That’s just the beginning. For instance, many of the more serious scholars doubt very much that Joshua had any intentions of starting a new religion. He was a good Jew and practiced that religion faithfully his whole life.”

“Listen,” Ed demanded. “Is there anything left at all of what I learned in Sunday school as a kid?”

The professor chuckled acidly. “Actually, quite a bit. Just what was it you wanted to know?”

Ed said, “Look, for instance the story about feeding the multitudes with two or three fish and a few loaves of bread, and then winding up with several bushels of leftover scraps.”

Dee shrugged. “Probably a parable. Many of Joshua’s teachings were given in parables.”

“Well, some of the other miracles. Raising the dead. Curing the lepers. That sort of thing.”

Dee was impatient. “Modern medicine performs miracles of that order with ease. In Joshua’s day their medical procedure before pronouncing a person dead was primitive, to say the least. As a matter of fact, you don’t have to go back that far. Did you know that the mother of Robert E. Lee was pronounced dead and was actually buried? She revived later and was rescued. So far as leprosy is concerned, it was and is a meaningless term, medically speaking, and in those days covered everything from skin diseases to venereal infections. Miracle healers were a dime a dozen, and a religious figure didn’t get very far unless he could put on a good performance in that department. Actually, Joshua is on record as being contemptuous of his followers continually wanting him to prove himself by such devices.”

Ed Wonder squirmed in his chair. “Well, if not Jesus, how about some of the other miracle workers? Mohammed, for instance?”

Dee eyed him critically. “I would think that with your program, Little Ed, you would have had your fill of miracle workers, by this time. Certainly, down through history, we run into them. Jesus, Mohammed, Hassan Ben Sabbah…”

“That one misses me,” Ed said.

“Founder of the Ismailian Shiite sect of the Moslems. His followers, the assassins, were fantatical beyond belief. At any rate, supposedly he performed various miracles, including teleporting himself several hundred miles at a crack.”

“But…” Ed said. Professor Dee’s attitude suggested a very big but.

“But,” Dee said, “close inspection by reliable scholars into the lives of these miracle workers seldom turns up evidence of unexplainable happenings.”

It was directly the opposite of what Jim Westbrook’s opinion had been the other day. Ed stirred in his chair. His interview with Professor Varley Dee was netting him a zero.

He came to his feet. “Well, thanks, Professor. I won’t take up any more of your time.”

Dee beamed at him. “Not at all, Little Ed. Pleasure. And I look forward to appearing on your remarkable program, once again, when the present difficulties with the air waves are over.”

“They’re not going to be over,” Ed said gloomily, as he prepared to depart.

That set the other back. “Not going to be over? Well… why?”

“Because one of the miracle workers we’ve been talking about slapped a hex on them,” Ed said. “See you again, some time, Professor.”

It was several days later before he decided to get in touch with Helen and Buzz again. Several days spent in a lethargic stew. Several days of indecision and frustration.

There should be something that he, Buzzo and Helen could do. But where was there to start? Neither of them dared get within distance of the gifted prophet. On the other hand, Ed Wonder was apprehensive over what Tubber might get around to doing all on his own. He didn’t need the catalyst of Ed or the others around. He was perfectly capable of dreaming up his own hexes. And was probably busy doing so.

He decided to call Helen Fontaine and suggest a date. Maybe being together would bring something to mind.

He didn’t have to phone Helen. She beat him to it.

The audio-alarm told him he was wanted on the phone, and it was her face that lit up the screen when he flicked it on. She looked distraught.

“Little Ed! Do you know where Buzz is?”

He scowled at her. “No. The last time I saw him he was with you at the club.”

“He’s disappeared.”

“What does that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve been trying to find him, to suggest we three get together again and bounce this thing around. But he’s not at the paper. Nor at his apartment.”

Ed had a sudden premonition. “You don’t think he’s gone up to see Tubber?”

Her eyes were wide. “That’s also what I’m afraid of.”

Ed said, “I’ll be right over.” He flicked off the phone and turned to go.

8

The audio said, “Two gentlemen to see you.”

Ed looked at the door screen. Two men stood there. Two men he had never seen before.

He opened up and they looked at him impassively.

“You’re Edward Wonder?” the first one, the older one, said.

“That’s right.”

“There’s somebody’d like to talk to you.” He brought out a wallet, flicked it open for inspection. “My name’s Stevens; this is Johnson.”

Ed grunted his lack of awe. “Gestapo, eh? What can I do for you?”

“You can come along,” Johnson said, mildly courteous.

Ed Wonder was moved to stubbornness. “Why? What’ve I supposed to have done?”

The first one, Stevens, said, “Search me. Some big deal, Mr. Wonder. Now will you please come along?”

“Look, I’m a citizen, and a taxpayer.” He thought about that. “At least I was until a week ago. Aren’t you supposed to have a warrant, or something?”

“Evidently, that was the good old days,” Stevens said, without antagonism. “Things are in a hurry now. Emergency. We were told to bring you in soonest. So we’re doing it.”

Ed Wonder felt more stubborn by the minute. “No,” he said. “Besides, I hate coppers.”

They looked at him.

He said, “That’s a long time ambition. To call a police officer a copper.”

Johnson said, “Swell. So now you’ve called somebody a copper. So lets get along.”

Ed gave up. “All right. But if you think you’ve got an emergency, you ought to know about my emergency.”

“It’s probably the same one,” Stevens said.

They ushered him down the elevator and to the street, one at each arm, easily, but Ed Wonder had the feeling that if he’d made a sudden dash for it, he wouldn’t have got more than two feet. There was a huge hover limousine before the door. They ushered him into the front seat and took their own positions to both sides of him. Stevens dialed their destination and the hover car rose toa police level and sped south.

“Where’re we going?” Ed said.

“Manhattan.”

“Why?” Ed said. “Don’t I get some sort of idea? I thought I was allowed to phone a lawyer, or something.”

“That was the good old days,” Stevens said.

Johnson was more cooperative. “Actually, Mr. Wonder, we don’t know what they want you for. This is the most hush-hush operation I’ve ever worked on.”

“Who’s they?” Ed demanded, indignant again, now.

Neither of them responded to that.

Manhattan was approximately a hundred miles to the south. Stevens lessened the speed fifteen minutes later and slipped into the heavier traffic of Ultra-New York.

They approached the New Woolworth Building, entered a vehicle portal and came to a halt before three smartly uniformed men, two of whom carried heavy caliber automatics in quick draw holsters.

Ed and his two plainclothesmen came out of the car and received the oatmeal look from the guards.

Credentials were presented and checked. The unarmed guard got on a phone and spoke into it quietly. Then he turned, nodded and showed them to an elevator.

They rose at stomach churning acceleration for what seemed a fantasically long time to Ed Wonder. They reached a peak of speed and then began to drop off. The door finally opened.

There were more guards, also armed. These too were passed. Ed Wonder’s two plainclothesmen ushered him down a hall to a side corridor. He passed a window and shot a look out. They were evidently very near the top of the tallest building in Manhattan. The doors of some of the rooms they passed were open. Inside were scores, hundreds, of men and women office workers. All seemed harassed. Other rooms were being set up for further activity; I.B.M. machines being wheeled in, key punches, collators, automatic printers, sorters.

“What the devil’s going on, here?” Ed demanded.

Johnson replied reasonably, “Like we told you. We don’t know.”

They finally reached their destination. Ed was ushered into a small anteroom, unoccupied save for a single girl at a desk.

Stevens said, “Wonder, Edward. Kingsburg. ‘C’ priority. Number Z-168.” He handed her an envelope. She opened it and scanned the single sheet it contained. “Oh, yes. Mr. Yardborough has been waiting.” She directed her voice to an interoffice communicator. “Mr. Yardborough, Mr. Wonder from Kingsburg has been brought in.”

Ed said hotly, “Look here, am I under arrest? If so, I want to phone a lawyer.”

She looked at him, shook her head as though too tired to answer. “Mr. Yardborough will see you now.”

One of the plainclothesmen opened the inner door for Ed’s passage, then closed it behind him.

Mr. Yardborough sat at a littered desk. The way Ed remembered it, an executive should never have a littered desk. There should only be one item of business at a time before the efficient executive.

Mr. Yardborough’s desk was littered to hell and gone.

He looked up, as weary in appearance as his receptionist. “Have a chair, Mr… uh… Wonder. Let me see.” He took up a paper out of the mess before him, then three news clippings.

Ed Wonder sat down. At least, somewhere in here he’d find out what was going on. The whole thing looked less and less like a police matter. He began to suspect…

Yardborough said, “Edward Wonder. Program director of the Far Out Hour, broadcasting on radio from Kingsburg. This first item we have on you is a news item written by…” he checked the clipping “…Buzz De Kemp, of the Kingsburg Times-Tribune. It describes, somewhat tongue in cheek, your radio guest, Ezekiel Joshua Tubber, an evangelist, who, supposedly, placed a, uh, curse on the vanity of women.”

Ed started to say something, but Yardborough held up a weary hand. “Just a minute. The second item is along the same line. Mr. De Kemp did another piece, also tongue in cheek, contending that this itinerent preacher, Tubber, was the cause of the so-called Homespun Look fashion fad.”

Yardborough laid down the second clipping, took up a third. “The last item also carries Mr. De Kemp’s byline but the style of writing seems somewhat different.”

“It was redone by the rewrite desk,” Ed mumbled. Things were beginning to clear.

“Indeed. Very well. This story, humorous in tone, reveals that Tubber claims to have been the cause of the current difficulties pertaining to television and radio.” Yardborough put the clipping down.

Ed said, “Where’d you get those?”

The other man smiled ruefully. “Believe me, Mr. Wonder, we have copies of every newspaper in the world, in whatever language, coming in here to the top five floors of the New Woolworth Building. We have translators going through them, word by word.”

Ed looked at him blankly.

Yardborough said, “Going through every newspaper in the world in hopes of finding a single hint, is only one of the operations going on in this building, Mr. Wonder. Nor is this building alone in the effort. However, suffice to say that we turned up these three items on you and Tubber. Now then, what have you to say to elucidate?”

Ed blurted, “What do you mean, what do I have to say? Nothing. They’re true.”

Yardborough said, “What’s true?”

“Ezekiel Joshua Tubber put a curse on women’s vanity. And it worked. Then he put a curse on radio and TV. That happened on my program. It worked too.”

Yardborough came to his feet. “All right, come along with me, Mr. Wonder.”

“Don’t you want to hear the whole story?” Ed Wonder said, surprised.

“You’re already out of my jurisdiction,” Yardborough told him. He gathered up the papers pertaining to Ed and led the way back into the receptionist’s office. The two plainclothes-men were still there, patiently waiting as only police can patiently wait.

Yardborough snapped to them. “This man has become ‘A’ priority, it’s your necks if anything happens to him.” He said to Ed Wonder, “Follow me.”

They went back into the corridor and up and down halls again. They were stopped only once by guards for identification. Finally, the four of them reached another office, larger this time, with three desks in the reception room. There were several guards about. Four or five nervous looking characters were sitting, obviously waiting for something or other, each with his own contingent of guards.

“Have a seat,” Yardborough told Ed, then went on to speak to one of the girls at a desk. He put the papers before her and spoke lowly. She nodded.

Yardborough turned back to Ed Wonder. “Good luck,” he said. To the two plainclothesmen he added, “Stick with him like paste until further orders.”

“Yes, sir,” they both said. Yardborough left.

“What the devil goes on?” Ed demanded.

Johnson seemed impressed. “You’re the first ‘A’ priority we turned up,” he said.

“Oh, great,” Ed snapped. “What’s ‘A’ priority mean?”

“Search me,” the other told him.

He waited possibly half an hour before a jittery looking type issued forth from one of the several inner offices that opened off the reception room, and called, “Edward Wonder?”

Ed stood up. His two guards came to attention.

The newcomer approached. “You’re Wonder?”

“That’s right.”

“Come with me.” Even as they walked into the inner sanctum, the other was scanning the report and Ed’s three clippings. The guards stayed behind.

There were two desks inside, the second occupied by an army major who had discarded his tunic which hung over the back of a chair, and had loosened his tie. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for quite a while.

The jittery looking type said, “I’m Bill Oppenheimer. This is Major Leonard Davis. You’ve been turned over to us as an ‘A’ priority.”

Even as he spoke he had tossed the report and clippings to Major Davis, who began tiredly perusing them.

Oppenheimer bent over an intercom on his desk and rapped, “I have here in my office a Mr. Edward Wonder of Kingsburg, New York. I want an immediate complete on him. Send a team.” He flicked off the intercom and turned back to Ed. “Sit down,” he said emptily.

Ed said, “What in the devil’s ‘A’ priority?”

“Somebody who thinks he knows what caused TV and radio to go haywire.”

“Why don’t you add movies?” Ed said. He was still confused. The curves were coming too fast for him to assimilate.

The army man looked up from the papers. He snapped, “We thought them separate phenomenon!”

“Well, they aren’t,” Ed told him definitely.

Oppenheimer sat on the edge of his desk and sighed. “Thus far, Mr. Wonder, the major and I have interviewed some three hundred persons in this office. All of them thought they knew the reason for the disruption of the air waves. All of them had been passed on to us as ‘A’ priority. Now, will you please tell us your story, in detail. As much detail as possible.”

The major snorted and tossed the dippings and report to his desk. “First, what was that crack about the movies?”

Ed said, “The same thing that caused TV and radio to go on the blink is the cause of the movies failing to project correctly.” He added. “For that matter, it’s also the cause of the Homespun Look fad.”

The major flicked a switch and said into his intercom, “Immediate action. It has been suggested that the failure of cinema is connected with TV and radio phenomenon. Will communicate further in due course.” He flicked the switch again. “All right,” he said to Ed Wonder. “The complete story.”

Ed told it to them, in all the details they wanted. He brought it right up to the last, and the disappearance of Buzz De Kemp.

When he had finished they continued to goggle him for a long silent moment.

Finally, Bill Oppenheimer coughed, as though apologetically. He said to the major, “What’d you think, Lenny?”

The major knuckled his chin and twisted his mouth. “I just gave up thinking,” he said. “I’ve heard everything, so now I don’t have to think any more.”

Ed was irritated. “Oh, funnies we get,” he said. “Big joke.”

Oppenheimer said, hopefully, “You think we ought to just throw him out?”

“I didn’t ask to come here,” Ed growled. “I was kidnaped.” They ignored him. The major shook his head and said, “We can’t throw him out. We can’t throw anybody out until we’ve checked the story through all ways from Tuesday.” He flicked his desk switch again and said, “If any of the following haven’t already had pickups, get them. Also immediate completes on all. This is an ‘AA’ priority. Buzz De Kemp, Jensen Fontaine, Helen Fontaine, Matthew Mulligan, Ezekiel Joshua Tubber. Yes, I said Ezekiel Joshua Tubber. And Nefertiti Tubber. All are from Kingsburg, New York, except the last two, last seen in Saugerties.”

Oppenheimer sighed and spoke into his own intercom. “Alice, the tape we just cut. Do it up immediately. Fifty copies. The usual distribution. It’s an ‘AA’ now. He sticks to his story.”

They both looked back at Ed Wonder, wordlessly for the moment.

The major opened his mouth to say something. Then he closed it again.

Oppenheimer said, without inflection, “Hexes.”

The intercom on the major’s desk reported something. The major’s eyebrows went up. “Send it in immediately.”

Within moments a messenger entered, deposited two copies of a report on the desks, hurried out again.

Ignoring Ed Wonder, the two read.

Oppenheimer looked up. His eyes went to Major Davis. “Crash priority?”

“Yes.” The major came to his feet, reached for his tunic, changed his mind. Then, in his shirt sleeves, tie still loose, he headed for the door. He said to Ed Wonder. “Come along.” Ed shrugged, got up and followed him. Oppenheimer brought up the rear, carrying the papers pertaining to Ed and the new report as well.

In the reception room, Johnson and Stevens shot to their feet and came forward.

The major said, “You’re Mr. Wonder’s guards?”

“Yes, sir.”

The major beckoned to two of the other guards present. “You’re released from your present assignment. You’ll help guard Mr. Wonder. With your lives, if necessary. This is crash priority.”

“Yes, sir.” All four of the guards brushed back coattails so that quick draw holsters were revealed on their hips, and now instantly available.

“What the devil,” Ed protested. He was ignored.

“Come along,” the major said again, and led the way. This time they ascended to the above floor. The bustle here was considerably less. They went through this hall, through that. Finally winding up before a door where a guard stood. As they approached, his hand went to his gun and remained there until the major and Oppenheimer identified themselves.

Oppenheimer said to him, “Another guest. There are six of you now. You’ll take it in shifts. One man outside, one in at all times. I’ll send lientenant Edmonds to arrange details. Until he turns up, all six of you stand by.”

He got a chorus of yes sirs, then opened the door and led the way inside. It was a lavish suite.

Buzz De Kemp looked up from the chair in which he was sitting reading a paperback novel. He grinned, took his stogie from his mouth and said, “Hi, Little Ed. So they picked you up too.”

Ed Wonder was beyond surprise by now. He sat down on the couch and closed his eyes.

Oppenheimer and the major looked at the newspaperman. The former said, “We’ve just read your report on the Tubber affair. Largely, you corroborate what Wonder has just told us. That ups you from ‘AA’ priority to crash.”

“Well, good for us,” Buzz beamed. “How many other crash prforities are there?”

“Several hundred, at least, in the United Welfare States. How many in England, Common Europe and the Soviet Complex, I’d have to check again to find out. Possibly by this time the Allied Neutral States have gotten underway as well.”

Buzz whistled silently. “This thing is getting really big.”

“It’s as big as a war,” the major said flatly.

Ed was beginning to adjust. He said peevishly, “When do we eat around here? If I’ve got to be a prisoner, I ought to be fed once in a while.”

Oppenheimer said to him. “You’re not a prisoner. You’re a volunteer, working for the government.”

“There’s a difference?”

“We’ll get in touch with you shortly.”

It wasn’t shortly. It wasn’t until the next morning. Meanwhile their guard system had been perfected and their needs met. They had spent several hours checking with each other, but it was largely a rehashing. Buzz De Kemp on the whole had had a similar experience to that of Ed Wonder. He’d been picked up by two agents and whisked to the New Woolworth Building. They had picked him up as the writer of the articles on Tubber. When he stuck to his guns, his priority rose from ‘C to ‘AA’ and then, when Ed Wonder’s story corroborated his, to crash.

They came for Ed and Buzz in the morning. Not Oppenheimer and Major Davis. Evidently, they were being dealt with by higher echelons now. It was a colonel with two aides who showed up to escort them to their next interview. Colonel Fredric Williams of Air Force Intelligence.

Buzz stuck his paperback in his jacket pocket, saying, “Just in case we run into the usual bureaucratic redtape. You know, hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait—I’ll take along something to read.”

The colonel glared at him. Buzz leered back, scooped up a handful of the stogies he had ordered the night before and jammed them into a jacket breast pocket. “I’ll need fuel, too.”

They followed the colonel and his aides, and the guards brought up the rear, coats still brushed back so that guns were readily handy. Ed wondered what they thought the potential danger might be, tucked away here on the top floors of Ultra-New York’s tallest skyscraper and surrounded by what seemed to be hundreds of security men.

Their destination was up still another floor, and this time there were two reception rooms, rather than one. The first was king-size, with a dozen busy desks and as many offices beyond. The second was small and presided over by a single middle-aged, less than matronly looking efficiency machine.

She said crisply, “Mr. Hopkins is waiting for you, Colonel. The others have arrived.”

“Thank you, Miss Presley.”

The colonel himself opened the inner door.

Whoever the architect who had designed the New Woolworth Building might have been, he had surely realized that the ultimate floor was meant for ultimate authority of one sort or another. This office bore that fact out.

Ed Wonder had never been in such an establishment in his life. Only Hollywood had prepared him for it. Even then, he looked about in amazement.

There was but one desk, which seemed to be suspended by one thin rod from the ceiling, rather than being supported on the floor. Behind it obviously sat Mr. Hopkins. The reality of who Mr. Hopkins was came immediately home to both Ed Wonder and Buzz De Kemp, the latter of whom reacted by whistling softly between his teeth.

Dwight Hopkins, the Great Compromiser. Dwight Hopkins, the power behind the throne. Dwight Hopkins who dominated western politics like a colossus.

Dwight Hopkins avoided publicity. He had no need of it. However, the right hand man, the one man brain trust, some said the alter ego, of President Everett MacFerson could not remain completely unknown to the knowledgeable citizen. President MacFerson might be, and was, a figurehead, a symbol, a public image whose actual efforts so far as governing the nation was concerned, went little beyond those of the ruling monarch of Great Britain. But while the MacFerson glamour type politicians might possess whatever it is which draws the votes of the populace, there still must be the Dwight Hopkinses behind the scenes. He had survived three administrations, having been handed down from the Democratic Republicans to the Liberal Conservatives and then back again, without change in either their policies—or his. There were seldom issues between the two parties under the Welfare State; it wasn’t considered the thing to attempt to influence the voters by raising issues. You voted for the man you liked best, not for principles.

Dwight Hopkins sat behind the small desk. To one side of him, in an easy chair, legs crossed, was a major general To the other, a tall, gray civilian. Across from him, in a row, were Jensen Fontaine, Helen Fontaine and Matthew Mulligan.

Ed shot his eyes around the room again. No mistake. The Tubbers were conspicuously absent.

Hopkins nodded to the newcomers. “You must be Buzz De Kemp, you look like a newspaperman. And you’re Edward Wonder. Why do they call you Little Ed?” The Hopkins voice was firm but the urgency in it had a strange easygoing quality, as though there wasn’t really any great hurry, now that Hopkins had taken over.

“I don’t know,” Ed said.

Mulligan blurted, “See here, Wonder, if all this is your…”

The major general rumbled, “That will be enough, Mr. Mulligan. Mr. Wonder is in the same position as you are. You’ve been brought here to help us clear up a matter that is of first importance to the nation.”

“To the world,” the tall gray civilian said mildly.

Jensen Fontaine said hotly, “I demand to know if those Communists down in Greater Washington think they can pick up citizens of good repute and…”

Dwight Hopkins was looking at the small town magnate expressionlessly. He interrupted to say, “Mr. Fontaine. In your belief, what is the cause of the disruption of radio and TV and, further, of motion picture projectors?”

Jensen Fontaine bent a beady eye on the politician and said, leadingly, “My country, may she always be right…”

Hopkins said easily, “I agree with you, sir. But to answer my question.”

Fontaine snapped, “I’ll tell you the cause. Soviet Complex sabotage. Subversion of American industry. Underground…”

“And how would they have accomplished this?”

“That’s not my job. You birds down in Greater Washington have been infiltrated. Even the Department of Justice. I suspect the C.I.A. could turn up the culprits soon enough if they weren’t honeycombed with Commie agents. Furthermore…”

Dwight Hopkins said, “You are free to go, Mr. Fontaine. Our thanks for your cooperation.”

Fontaine was just getting into stride. He raised an arm to wave in emphasis, and it was taken firmly by Colonel Williams. “I’ll show you to the door, sir.”

Mulligan’s eyes went from Hopkins to the semi-struggling Fontaine. “See here, you can’t treat Mr. Fontaine that way!” he blatted.

The white Hopkins’ eyebrows went up. “Do your own opinions coincide with his, Mr. Mulligan?”

Mulligan was the second to be ushered out.

Dwight Hopkins looked at Helen, Buzz and Ed Wonder. “I have read the reports. You three were the ones I really wished to talk to anyway. I am sorry, Miss Fontaine, if my handling of your father seemed cavalier.”

“Bounce it,” Helen said, making a moue. “Daddy can use a little cavalier treatment.”

The president’s right hand man leaned back in his chair and regarded them solemnly.

He said, “A week ago Friday, TV and radio became inoperative. For several hours the government took no action. It was assumed that the industry would soon discover the cause and remedy it. However, when it became known that the phenomenon was worldwide, an emergency committee was named. The following day, the president released special funds to increase the size of the committee and give it more arbitrary powers. The following day the committee became a commission. And the day after, in secret session, the Congress voted unlimited resources and I was named head of this project and responsible only to the president. General Crew and Professor Braithgale here, are my assistants.”

Buzz De Kemp was evidently awed not even by such as Dwight Hopkins. He had brought one of his inevitable stogies from his pocket and as he searched for matches, said around it, “You people sure seem to be in a tizzy over moron level entertainment. The major was telling us, last night, it’s as important as a war. And…”

“A nuclear war, Mr. De Kemp,” Hopkins said.

“Don’t be silly,” Helen said.

Dwight Hopkins looked at the tall gray civilian. “Professor Braithgale, will you enlighten us a bit on the ramifications of the situation which confronts us?”

The professor’s voice was dry and clear, and he lectured, rather than conversed.

“What happens to a civilization when there is an economy of abundance and no publicly provided entertainment?”

The trio, Ed, Buzz and Helen, frowned simultaneously at him, but neither tried an answer. It was obviously rhetorical.

He went on. “The average human being is not capable of self-programming. At least as he is today. He can’t think up tasks to occupy himself. He’s never had to. Man evolved under conditions where the time and energy he had available were programmed for him; he worked, and he worked twelve to eighteen hours a day. All day, every day. Or he starved. What to do with his time was determined for him. What recreation there was, was very seldom; purely traditional games and dances were a vast relief and entertainment. He never got a chance to become bored with them—he got to play them too seldom. That situation lasted for 99.99 percent of the history of the species.”

Braithgale eyed them, and his voice went drier still “Now it’s true that leisure is essential for creative activity. Until there is a leisure class, a group with time to do something besides subsist, there is very little opportunity for cultural progress. But, leisure doesn’t automatically produce creativity.

“So the question becomes, what happens to a culture with plenty of everything—except predetermined activity for the noncreative average man? In other words, what happens to this affluent society, this Welfare State of ours, if we take away radio, motion pictures, and especially television—television, the common man’s pacifier.”

Ed was scowling. “Vaudeville,” he ventured. “The legitimate theatre. Circuses. Carnivals.”

The professor nodded. “Yes, but I submit that they would provide but a drop in the bucket, even when and if we get them organized and train the needed talent. How much time can people spend that way?”

Buzz brought his paperback from his jacket pocket and waved it at the other. “There’s reading.”

Braithgale shook his head. “The average human does not like to read, Mr. De Kemp. It requires that they contribute a great deal of mental activity themselves. They have to visualize the actions from the words, imagine the voice tones, the facial expressions, and so forth. They are not up to such creative labor.”

The professor seemed to switch subjects. “Do you recall ever having read of the riots which swept Constantinople during Justinian’s reign as a result of a minor squabble over the horse races? Well, several tens of thousands of persons lost their lives.”

He remained silent for a moment, looking at them, to achieve emphasis. Then, “It is my belief that the thing that eventually destroyed Rome was the growth of an immense leisure class. Rome was no longer a subsistence culture, the colonies supported it. The populace was awarded free food. They had leisure but no self-programming creativity.”

Braithgale wound it up. “A man wants something to do. But if he hasn’t the ability to invent something to do, what happens when you take away his TV, his radio, his movies?”

Ed said, “I’ve been reading of the riots in England—and in Chicago, for that matter.”

The major general rumbled to Hopkins, “We’ve got to bear down some more on those darned journalists. They’re letting too much of that sort of report get through.”

Dwight Hopkins didn’t answer him. Instead, he tapped a thick sheaf of papers on his desk and spoke to Ed, Buzz and Helen. “Frankly, your account astonishes me and leaves me incredulous. However, you have this in your favor; you corroborate each other. Hadn’t it been for the matter of the cinema, which is utterly inexplainable in terms of atmospheric disturbances, I admit that I would not be inclined to consider your account at all. However… what is the trouble, Mr. De Kemp?”

They all looked at the rumpled newsman who was, in turn, goggling the pocketbook he held in his hands. “I must’ve picked up the wrong copy,” he said, unbelievingly. “But I couldn’t have.” He looked up at them, as though accusingly. “This thing’s in French.”

Ed scowled down at it, wondering at the other’s confusion. “That’s not French. It looks like German to me.”

Helen said, “It’s not German. I studied German a bit. It looks like Russian.”

Buzz said defensively, “Don’t be kooky. It’s not even in the Cyrillic alphabet. I say it’s French. But it couldn’t be. I was reading it just before I came in here. And the cover illustration is the same and…”

Professor Braithgale unfolded his lanky form and came to his feet. “Let me see that,” he said drily. “I can read and write in all the Romance languages, German, Swedish and Russian. I don’t know what has come up but…” His sentence drifted off. His usually quiet gray eyes boggled. “It is… it is in Sanscrit, I think.”

“Let me see that,” Hopkins said crisply. “What’s the controversy?”

The professor handed him the paperback suspense novel. “Why, it looks like Italian to me. I don’t know the language but…”

“Holy smokes,” Ed breathed. “He’s done it again. He’s hexed fiction.”

“What!” the major general rumbled. “Are you utterly insane?”

“No, look,” Ed was on his feet. “That report you have in front of you. You can still read it, can’t you? I can. I can read these papers I had in my coat pocket. Look at this newspaper.” He was excitedly showing them. “The news you can read. But look here at the comic page. All the writing is jabber. It looks like it’s in German to me, but I don’t read German. He’s hexed fiction.”

“Sit down,” Dwight Hopkins rasped. Into his desk communicator he said, “Miss Presley. I want you to send in several books, both fiction and nonfiction. I also want an immediate report on why Ezekiel Joshua Tubber and his daughter have not been picked up.”

“Yes, sir,” Miss Presley’s efficient voice came through clearly. “The Tubbers have not been found, as yet. The operatives who were sent for them report that they have left Saugerties. Evidently, the itinerant preacher was extremely upset due to the fact that his message was not being listened to.”

Hopkins said crisply, “Is there any hint as to their destination?”

“One of their followers said they were going to Elysium. There is no such community listed, sir, in any of the sixty-four States. It might be in Common Europe, or…”

“That will be sufficient, Miss Presley,” Dwight Hopkins said. He flicked off the intercom and looked at Braithgale and then at the major general. The latter rumbled, “What’s the matter?”

But Braithgale knew what the matter was. He said, slowly, “Elysium. Another word for the Elysian Fields of the Ancient Greeks.”

“What the blazes are the Elysian Fields?” the general demanded.

Dwight Hopkins said, “Paradise.” He ran a hand over his chin, as though checking his morning shave. “Our friend Tubber has gone to Heaven.”