Mack Reynolds - Earth Unaware

“Wait a minute,” Braithgale said, “you’re giving me a headache.”

“Talking about Zeke Tubber and his religion would give anybody a headache,” Buzz said. He paused a moment for dramatic emphasis, then said, “I think I know where Tubber and his daughter have gone.”

Hopkins looked at Buzz, stunned momentarily.

Buzz said, “He’s at a cooperative colony near Bearsville, in the Catskills. I heard Tubber mention the place in one of his talks. He invited anybody in the audience who was ready for…” Buzz twisted his mouth “…the promised land, to come to Elysium and join up. It’s evidently in the tradition of Robert Owen’s New Harmony colony, Llano, down in Louisiana, and Josiah Warren’s Village of Equity.”

Major General Crew rumbled, “What are you talking about, Mister?”

Professor Braithgale was looking at Buzz with a new respect. He turned his head and said to the army man, “Cooperative colonies. Utopias. There was quite a movement in their favor back in the 19th Century. Most were based on religion, some not. The Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, turned out to be the most successful. They were intelligent enough to adapt when this teaching or that didn’t prove out. The others went under.”

Ed said, “We might have known they didn’t go very far. Tubber travels in a horse and wagon.”

“Horesonvagen?” the general rumbled. “What’s that, some new German model?”

“Horse and wagon, a horse and wagon,” Ed told him. “A wagon pulled by a horse.”

The army man stared at him in disbelief. “You mean like in Western movies?”

“Please, Scotty,” Dwight Hopkins said, without looking at him. The general shut up and Hopkins said to Ed Wonder thoughtfully, “You seem to be our best authority on Ezekiel Joshua Tubber.”

He was interrupted by the arrival of Miss Presley who bore an armload of books. Even the efficient Miss Presley was looking as though something a bit disconcerting had happened, such as Gabriel blowing his horn, or the Atlantic disappearing. She put the books on Hopkins’ desk and said, “Sir, I… I…”

“I know, Miss Presley. That will be all for now.”

Dwight Hopkins took the books up and examined them one by one, while the others looked at him. He put the last one down and rubbed his eyes with his forefingers in resignation. “It still looks like Italian to me.”

The general blurted, “All of them?”

“No. Not all of them. The nonfiction is still readable. In fact,” he picked up one hard cover volume. “This novel is still in English. Huckleberry Finn .”

“ Huckleberry Finn ?” Helen said. “Mark Twain?”

Ed Wonder closed his eyes in mute appeal to high powers. “Oh, great. This is a new one. This hex is selective. Anything Tubber doesn’t like, becomes jibberish. Anything he approves of, we can still read. Holy smokes, talk about censorship. I thought I noticed something about that page of comic strips.”

“What was that?” Buzz asked him.

“I could still read Pogo. Buzz Sawyer, Junior and Little Orphan Annie were jibberish, but I could still read Pogo .”

Professor Braithgale took up the newspaper. “You’re right,” he said. “At least our prophet has a sense of humor.”

“Oh, Mother ,” Helen muttered. “All I can say is that we’d better develop one too.”

Hopkins said, slowly, “Mr. Wonder, when your group entered this office, I was admittedly prone to think you just one more set of the eccentrics we have been digging up since the crisis first arose. Now, however, this has developed to the point where no scientific explanation seems possible. I am ready to throw this commission’s full resources behind you.”

“Behind me ?” Ed blurted. “Why me ?”

The president’s right hand man was not fazed. “Because you are our nearest thing to an authority on Ezekiel Joshua Tubber. You were present at three of his, ummm, performances. Besides, as the director of your Far Out Hour, I am sure you are highly knowledgeable in the field of the, ah, far out. And certainly this is about as far out as it is possible to get.”

“But…” Ed wailed.

Dwight Hopkins held up a hand. “I do not mean to suggest that your hypothesis—that Ezekiel Tubber has caused our crisis by a series of curses—is the only one my commission will continue to investigate. Far from it. However, we will set up a new department with you at the head and with full resources.”

“No,” Ed said with finality.

Buzz looked at him strangely. He said around his stogie, “You haven’t said yet, what’s in it for me ? Little Ed.”

Ed Wonder turned on him desperately, “I know what’s in it for me. Sure I was present at three of his performances, as Hopkins calls them. I’ve seen the old buzzard three times and each time the results were worse. What do you think will happen next time? He’s getting arrogant…”

“ Getting arrogant?” Braithgale laughed bitterly.

“…He’s beginning to feel his oats.” Ed swung on Hopkins. “He started off innocent. Not knowing what he was doing. Evidently, one of his first curses was brought on by some teenager practicing hillbilly music on his guitar. Tubber broke the guitar strings…”

“What’s miraculous about that?” the general rumbled.

“…at a distance. Then there was something else that brought him to wrath, as his daughter calls it. A neon sign, or something. So he laid a curse on it. What happened, I don’t know. Maybe it stopped flickering.”

From the background Colonel Williams said, “I wish he’d lay a hex on the neon sign across from my house. The darn thing…”

General Crew looked at him and the colonel shut up.

Ed said desperately, “When he laid that Homespun Look hex on women, he didn’t know he had done it. Evidently when he gets really wrathed up, he forgets what he says. He was astonished when I told him he’d cursed radio. As surprised as anybody else that it’d worked. But look at this now. He’s cursed all light reading. All fiction—except what he likes. Listen, I’ll bet you he wasn’t even sore when he laid that one on.”

Dwight Hopkins frowned. “I’m becoming more convinced by the moment,” he said. “And Wonder, you’re our man.”

“I am not. I keep telling you. This kook is as nutty as almond cookies. Suppose he spots me and is reminded all over again of some of the arguments I’ve had with him, remembers that hardly anybody’ll listen to him. Suppose he gets wrathful again and lays down a hex on all unbelievers. You know what that’d mean? He doesn’t have more than a couple of hundred believers all together. I tell you, that twitch is more dangerous than the H-Bomb.”

General Crew said thoughtfully, “A sniper. The best marksman in the service. Posted on a hill, with a Winchester Noiseless and a Mark 8 telescopic sight. This Elysium, from what De Kemp has said, is in the hills. A small community, away from any city. A sniper…”

Buzz grinned at him. “And how about this possibility, General? Suppose something goes wrong and Zeke lays a spell on gunpowder? Better still, all explosives? What would happen to the Cold War thaw if all of a sudden no explosives would work?”

The general scowled at him. “The curses are universal. In that case, explosives wouldn’t work for the Commies, either.”

Buzz took his stogie from his mouth and examined the tip, which was burning unevenly. “They wouldn’t need explosives,” he said. “The Chinese alone could overrun us with butcher knives made in those backyard steel mills of theirs.”

Helen said, “Besides, assassination is out of the question. Actually, like Buzz was saying the other day, Tubber is a kindly old gent who just happens…”