Mack Reynolds - Earth Unaware

Ed dialed another drink, desperately. “All right, so maybe electric martini stirrers are on the redundant side. But it’s what people want.”

“That’s what people are taught to want. We must reverse ourselves. We have solved the problems of production of abundance, now man should settle down and take stock of himself, work out his path to his destiny, his Elysium. The overwhelming majority of our scientists are working either on methods of destruction, or the creation of new products which our people do not actually need nor want. Instead, they should be working upon the curing of man’s ills, delving into the secrets of the All-Mother, plumbing the ocean’s depths, reaching out to the stars.”

“All right, but you’ve seen that people simply aren’t interested in your ideas. They want their TV, their radio, their movies back. They aren’t interested in your path to Elysium. You admit that, you’ve even given up your lectures.”

“In a weak moment,” Tubber nodded. “This very day I plan to resume my efforts. Nefertiti and I will depart for the city of Oneonta where my tent will again…” He broke off, to glower once more at the thundering juke box which was blasting out a Rock’n’Swing revival of She’ll Be Comin’ ’Round the Mountain . “In the name of the All-Mother, how can anyone wish to listen to that?”

Ed shouted reasonably. “It’s your own fault. You’ve taken away TV, radio and movies. People aren’t used to silence. They want music.”

“Dost thou call that music!” The infinitely sad face of the aged Speaker of the Word was beginning to change in a manner that came back to Ed Wonder in a growing dismay.

“Now look,” Ed said hurriedly. “It’s a natural reaction. People are packing into restaurants, bars, dancehalls. Any place where they can get a little entertainment. The juke box manufacturers are running on a three shift basis. Records are being turned out wholesale, as fast as they can press them…” He cut himself off sharply. It wasn’t the right thing to say.

Ezekiel Joshua Tubber, Speaker of the Word, was swelling visibly.

Ed Wonder stared at him numbly. It came to him that Moses must have looked something like this when he came down from the mountain with his Ten Commandments and found the Hebrews worshiping the Golden Calf.

“Ah, they do! Then verily do I curse this abomination! This destroyer of the peace so that man cannot hear himself think! Verily do I say, that they who wish music shalt have music!”

The volume of the multi-colored music machine fell off sharply, and the six white horses that were coming ’round the mountain sudden dissolved into, “…we’ll sing as we go marching on…”

Ed Wonder lurched to his feet. He felt a sudden, dominating urge to get out of there. He muttered something to Ezekiel Joshua Tubber in the way of farewell, and hustled toward the door.

As he escaped, the last he saw of the hex-wielding prophet Tubber was still glaring at the juke box.

Somebody standing at the bar growled, “Who in blazes played that one?”

The record player swung into the chorus, “Glory, Glory Hallelujah. Glory, Glory Hallelujah…”

Ed Wonder tooled the little Volkshover.down the freeway toward Ultra-New York.

So great. He’d warned Hopkins. He seemed to act as a catalyst around Tubber. He couldn’t get within talking distance of the Speaker of the Word without a new hex resulting. Not that the old boy wasn’t up to getting wrathed up about something on his own. Ed wondered if the hex on the parking meters applied only to those in Woodstock, or if the phenomenon were worldwide. Evidently, Tubber’s mysterious power didn’t have to be universal in scope. When he’d broken the guitar strings, it hadn’t been all of the guitar strings in the world, evidently, but only the ones on the individual guitar. And from what Nefertiti had suggested, when he had burned down the roadhouse where she had been performing, the lightning had hit only the one place, not every roadhouse on earth.

Ed muttered, “Thank the All-Mother for small favors.”

He stopped along the way for a sandwich and cup of coffee at a trucker’s stop.

Half a dozen customers were gathered around the establishment’s juke box, staring at it in bewilderment. The record player was grinding out, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where…”

One of the truckers said, “Jesus, no matter what I punch it comes out, Hark the Herald Angels Sing .”

One of the others looked at him in disgust. “What’d’ya talking about? That’s not Hark the Herald Angels Sing . That’s Little Town of Bethlehem .”

Somebody else chimed, “Both you guys are kooky. I remember that song from when I was a kid. It’s In the Sweet Bye and Bye .”

A Negro shook his head at them. “ Mother , but you folks just ain’t up on spirituals. That there’s Go Down Moses . No matter what you punch on this here crazy machine, it comes out Go Down Moses .”

Ed Wonder decided to forget about the sandwich. So far as he was concerned, he was still hearing, and over and over again, all about the glory of the coming of the Lord, and glory, glory Hallelujah.

He left the place and got back into the Volkshover. He wondered how long it would be before everyone gave up and stopped sticking coins in juke boxes.

He set out again for Manhattan and the New Woolworth building. Okay, he’d warned them. All he could say was it was lucky old Tubber liked an occasional beer himself, otherwise probably every bottle of booze in the country would have been turned into vintage orange pop, just as soon as the Speaker of the Word got around to thinking about all the people who were spending their time in bars, rather than listen to the need for hiking down the path to Elysium like good pilgrims.

At the New Woolworth Building, his identification got him past the preliminary guards and up to the five—only it was now ten—floors devoted to Dwight Hopkins’ emergency commission.

He found Helen Fontaine and Buzz De Kemp in his own office, bent over a portable phonograph and eyeing it accusingly as though the device had malevolently betrayed them.

When Ed entered, Buzz pulled his stogie from his mouth and said, “You’ll never believe this, but…”

“I know, I know,” Ed Wonder growled. “What is it you hear?”

Helen said, “It’s fantastic. For me, it comes out I Come to the Garden Alone .”

“No, listen,” Buzz insisted, “listen to those words. If you follow Me. I will make you fishers of men, if you’ll follow me.’ Clear as a bell.”

It still sounded like “Glory, Glory Hallelujah” to Ed Wonder. He slumped down in the chair behind his desk.

Buzz took the record from the machine and put on another one. “But listen to this. The other was supposedly a Rock’n’-Swing piece, but this label reads the first movement of the Peer Gynt Suite.” He flicked the switch on. The first movement of the Peer Gynt Suite came out The Morning , as it was supposed to do.

Ed was interested. “It’s selective again.”

They looked at him.

Buzz said accusingly, “What’s selective again?”

“The hex.”

Buzz and Helen stared accusingly at Ed.

Ed said defensively, “We were talking in a bar and they had the juke box tuned up to full volume and, well, he had to shout to be heard.”

“Oh, fine,” Buzz said. “Why didn’t you get him out of there?”

Helen said wearily, “So he got wrathful about juke boxes. Heavens to Betsy, can’t anybody ever turn him off before he gets mad? He’s not only fouled up juke boxes but all popular records, and I imagine tapes.”