Thomas Sherred: E for Effort

“That is the President of the United States. He is watching the trial that is being broadcast and televised from this courtroom. He is listening to what I am saying right now, and he is watching, in his television screen, as I use my machine to show him what he was doing one second ago.”

The President heard those fateful words. Stiffly he threw an unconscious glance around his room at nothing and looked back at his screen in time to see himself do what he just had done, one second ago. Slowly, as if against his will, his hand started toward the switch of his set.

“Mr. President, don’t turn off that set.” Mike’s voice was curt, almost rude. “You must hear this, you of all people in the world. You must understand!

“This is not what we wanted to do, but we have no recourse left but to appeal to you, and to the people of this twisted world.” The President might have been cast in iron. “You must see, you must understand that you have in your hands the power to make it impossible for greed-born war to be bred in secrecy and rob man of his youth or his old age or whatever he prizes.” His voice softened, pleaded. “That is all we have to say. That is all we want. This is all anyone could want, ever.” The President, unmoving, faded into blackness. “The lights, please,” and almost immediately the Court adjourned. That was over a month ago.

Mike’s machine has been taken from us, and we are under military guard. Probably it’s just as well we’re guarded. We understand there have been lynching parties, broken up only as far as a block or two away. Last week we watched a white-haired fanatic scream about us, on the street below. We couldn’t catch what he was shrieking, but we did catch a few air-borne epithets.

“Devils! Anti-Christs! Violation of the Bible! Violations of this and that!” Some, right here in the city, I suppose, would be glad to build a bonfire to cook us right back to the flames from which we’ve sprung. I wonder what the various religious groups are going to do now that the truth can be seen. Who can read lips in Aramaic, or Latin, or Coptic? And is a mechanical miracle a miracle?

This changes everything. We’ve been moved. Where, I don’t know, except that the weather is warm, and we’re on some military reservation, by the lack of civilians. Now we know what we’re up against. What started out to be just a time-killing occupation, Joe, has turned out to be a necessary preface to what I’m going to ask you to do. Finish this, and then move fast! We won’t be able to get this to you for a while yet, so I’ll go on for a bit the way I started, to kill time.

Like our clippings:

TABLOID:

…Such a weapon cannot, must not be loosed in unscrupulous hands. The last professional production of the infamous pair proves what distortions can be wrested from isolated and misunderstood events. In the hands of perpetrators of hereticalisms, no property, no business deal, no personal life could be sacrosanct, no foreign policy could be…

TIMES:

…colonies stand with us firmly… liquidation of the Empire…

white man’s burden…

LE MATIN:

…rightful place… restore proud France…

PRAVDA:

…democratic imperialist plot… our glorious scientist ready to announce…

NICHI-NICHI:

…incontrovertibly prove divine descent…

LA PRENSA:

…oil concessions… dollar diplomacy…

DETROIT JOURNAL:

…under our noses in a sinister fortress on East Warren… under close Federal supervision… perfection by our production-trained technicians a mighty aid to law-enforcement agencies… tirades against politicians and business common sense carried too far… tomorrow revelations by…

L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO:

Council of Cardinals… announcement expected hourly…

JACKSON STAR-CLARION:

…proper handling will prove the fallacy of race equality…

Almost unanimously the press screamed; Pegler frothed, Win-chell leered. We got the surface side of the situation from the press. But a military guard is composed of individuals, hotel rooms must be swept by maids, waiters must serve food, and a chain is as strong— We got what we think the truth from those who work for a living.

There are meetings on street corners and homes, two great veterans’ groups have arbitrarily fired their officials, seven governors have resigned, three senators and over a dozen representatives have retired with “ill health,” and the general temper is ugly. International travelers report the same of Europe, Asia is bubbling, and transport planes with motors running stud the airports of South America. A general whisper is that a Constitutional Amendment is being rammed through to forbid the use of any similar instrument by any individual, with the manufacture and leasing by the Federal government to law-enforcement agencies or financially-responsible corporations suggested; it is whispered that motor caravans are forming throughout the country for a Washington march to demand a decision by the Court on the truth of our charges; it is generally suspected that all news disseminating services are under direct Federal—Army control; wires are supposed to be sizzling with petitions and demands to Congress, which are seldom delivered.

One day the chambermaid said: “And the whole hotel might as well close up shop. The whole floor is blocked off, there’re MP’s at every door, and they’re clearing out all the other guests as fast as they can be moved. The whole place wouldn’t be big enough to hold the letters and wires addressed to you, or the ones that are trying to get in to see you. Fat chance they have,” she added grimly. “The joint is lousy with brass.”

Mike glanced at me and I cleared my throat. “What’s your idea of the whole thing?”

Expertly she spanked and reversed a pillow. “I saw your last picture before they shut it down. I saw all your pictures. When I wasn’t working I listened to your trial. I heard you tell them off. I never got married because my boy friend never came back from Burma. Ask him what he thinks,” and she jerked her head at the young private that was supposed to keep her from talking. “Ask him if he wants some bunch of stinkers to start him shooting at some other poor chump. See what he says, and then ask me if I want an atom bomb dropped down my neck just because some chiselers want more than they got.” She left suddenly, and the soldier left with her. Mike and I had a beer and went to bed. Next week the papers had headlines a mile high.

U. S. KEEPS MIRACLE RAY CONSTITUTION AMENDMENT AWAITS STATES OKAY LAVIADA-LEFKO FREED

We were freed all right, Bronson and the President being responsible for that. But the President and Bronson don’t know, I’m sure, that we were rearrested immediately. We were told that we’ll be held in “protective custody” until enough states have ratified the proposed constitutional amendment. The Man Without a Country was in what you might call “protective custody,” too. We’ll likely be released the same way he was.

We’re allowed no newspapers, no radio, allowed no communication coming or going, and we’re given no reason, as if that was necessary. They’ll never, never let us go, and they’d be fools if they did. They think that if we can’t communicate, or if we can’t build another machine, our fangs are drawn, and when the excitement dies, we fall into oblivion, six feet of it. Well, we can’t build another machine. But, communicate?

Look at it this way. A soldier is a soldier because he wants to serve his country. A soldier doesn’t want to die unless his country is at war. Even then death is only a last resort. And war isn’t necessary any more, not with our machine. In the dark? Try to plan or plot in absolute darkness, which is what would be needed. Try to plot or carry on a war without putting things in writing. O.K. Now—