Mack Reynolds - Earth Unaware

Ed said, “I never did like juke boxes anyway. He also evidently didn’t have a dime to stick in a parking meter. So…”

“Hey, now we’re getting somewhere,” Buzz said. “Don’t tell me he laid a hex on parking meters.”

“There’s no slot in them, any more,” Ed told him. “Listen, did anything important happen while I was gone?”

“No, master,” Buzz said. “Everything stops when Your Eminence is absent. We dragged in a bunch of professors, doctors and every sort of scientist from biologist to astonomer. They’re still going at it, but it’s all we can do to convince one out of a hundred that we’re serious when we ask what a curse is. We’ve put a few dozen of them to work—supposedly—to research the subject. But nobody knows where to start. You can’t get a hex into a laboratory. You can’t measure it, weigh it, analyze it. Of the whole bunch we’ve turned up exactly one who believes hexes can happen.”

“We have?” Ed said, surprised.

“A guy named Westbrook. All that worries me is, he’s probably a twitch.” Buzz threw his stogie into the wastebasket.

“Jim Westbrook? Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten I’d put out a call for him to be picked up. Jim Westbrook’s no twitch. He used to act as a panelist on my Far Out Hour. What has he come up with?”

“He’s suggested we draft the whole Parapsycology Department of Duke University, just as a beginning. Then he suggests we send to Common Europe, to the Vatican, in Rome, with a request for a team of their top exorcisers.”

“Who in the devil needs exercise at a time like this?”

“Exorcisers, exorcisers. The archives of the Church probably contain more information on exorcising of evil spirits and such like than any other library in the world. Westbrook figures that taking off a hex is a related subject. He also suggests that we butter up Number One, in the Kremlin, and see if we can get into whatever archives remain of the Russian Orthodox Church, and also approach the Limeys for any dope the Church of England might have back in some lower bookshelves. All of them have the exorcising of evil spirits in their dogma.”

Ed grunted wearily, “I suppose I ought to go and report to Hopkins, but if I know him and Braithgale, they’d keep me up half the night. Tubber gave me an earful of this program of his.”

“Father got hold of one of Tubber’s pamphlets. He says that the path to Elysium is super-communism.”

Buzz grunted, “Jensen Fontaine is about as competent of judging Zeke Tubber’s program as a eunuch is the Miss America competition.”

“Funnies we get,” Ed complained. “At any rate, I’m too tired to think. What do you say we go to the apartment they’ve assigned me and have a few quick ones, then call it a night?”

Buzz fumbled for a fresh stogie, looking slightly embarrassed. “Uh, Little Ed…”

“Listen,” Ed said. “I’m getting fed up with that handle. The next guy who calls me Little Ed, gets awarded a fat lip.”

Buzz De Kemp blinked at him. “Chum, you just don’t sound like the old Lit… that is Ed Wonder, atall. Atall.”

Helen said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to take a rain check, Ed. Buzz and I have a date for this evening.”

Ed looked from one of them to the other. “Oh?” He touched the end of his nose reflectively. “Well, good .”

Helen said, as though in defense, “I figure even though I can’t be a clotheshorse myself, anymore, possibly I can teach this bum to look more of a credit to his profession.”

“You’ve got your work cut out for you, sister,” Buzz leered at her. “I’m the type who can buy a two hundred dollar suit, and before I get out of the tailor shop I already look like I’ve slept in it.”

“Funnies,” Ed groaned. “Good night.”

He was about to sit down to breakfast and the morning paper when Colonel Fredric Williams came bustling in. Ed Wonder looked up at him.

“Special meeting in Mr. Hopkins’ office, Wonder,” he rapped.

“I haven’t finished my breakfast.”

“No time. Several important developments.”

Ed rolled up the paper and stuck it into his jacket pocket, took a quick scalding sip of his coffee and came to his feet. “All right, let’s go.”

He followed the colonel from the suite. His two bodyguards, Johnson and Stevens, fell in behind them in the hall. There was the bureaucratic mind for you, Ed decided. Yesterday they had sent him up to Elysium, right into the camp of the supposed enemy, without a peashooter in the way of protection. But now, in this ultra-commission on the top of the New Woolworth Building, supposedly it wasn’t safe for him to walk down the corridor unguarded.

Hopkins was not alone. In fact, his office was crowded. This time Ed Wonder recognized almost all of them. Braithgale, General Crew, Buzz and Helen, Colonel Williams, and the more important members of Ed’s Project Tubber team. Evidently, of all the different branches of investigation of the disasters, his project was rapidly gaining the ascendency.

When they were seated, Hopkins turned a baleful eye on them, stressing Ed and Buzz De Kemp. He said, “Before we get to Mr, Wonder’s report on his visit to Elysium, there are a couple of other developments. Mr. Oppenheimer?”

Bill Oppenheimer, he who with Major Davis had originally upped Ed and Buzz to crash priority, came to his feet, jittering characteristically. He said, “To make it brief, very young children, all idiots and most morons, aren’t effected.”

“Aren’t effected by what?” General Crew rumbled.

Oppenheimer looked at him. “By any of the hexes. They can even hear radio, see television.” Bill Oppenheimer sat down.

Hopkins said, “Mr. Yardborough.”

Cecil Yardborough came to his feet. “This is very preliminary. We’ve hardly started on this line, however, we should speed things up now that we’ve taken over the Parapsychology Department of Duke.” He looked at Ed Wonder, as though expecting opposition to what he was about to say. “One of our researchers who’s had considerable experience in ESP has suggested a scientific explanation for Tubber’s power.”

He couldn’t have gotten more attention had he suddenly levitated.

Yardborough went on. “Our Doctor Jeffers suggests that Ezekiel Joshua Tubber has, probably unknowingly, developed telepathy beyond the point ever known before. Most telepathists can contact but one other person at a time, some can communicate with two or three, a very small number have been known to pass a thought on to a large number of persons within a limited distance.” Yardborough’s eyes swept around them. “Doctor Jeffers believes Tubber to be the first human being who can telepathically contact the whole species simultaneously, regardless of language.”

Braithgale unfolded his long legs, recrossed them the other way. He said mildly, “What has that got to do with the hexes?”

Yardborough said, “That is but one half of the Jeffers hypothesis. He also is of the opinion that Tubber is able to hypnotize through telepathy. That is, he doesn’t have to be before the person hypnotized. He can be any distance away.”

A sigh, as though of relief, drifted through the room.

“It doesn’t hold up,” Ed Wonder said flatly.

They turned to him, and there seemed to be glare in the expression of all, even Helen and Buzz.

He gestured with his hands, palms upward, “Okay. I know. Everybody wants it to hold up. People are built that way. They go batty if something comes along they can’t label. They’ve simply got to have an explanation for everyhing. However, this Doctor Jeffers doesn’t explain Tubber’s power. Sure, maybe I’d buy it for the TV-radio curse, and even the movie curse. It might even cover the juke box curse.”