Artificial dreams weren't enough for Andy Brooks.
He was determined to find them in reality!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Science Fiction Quarterly May 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
His wife's face was ugly; it was shallow and flat like a broken plate.
From the balcony of their apartment in the Communal Worker's Center,
Brooks turned his gaze and his hate away from her face. He looked at
the moon. The disc of dreams was being blotted out by the sea; there
were night shadows on the sea, fringed with the white curving foam of
breaking tide.
Like the lost Sea of Anghar beside which he had fought through many
Sensory Show adventures for the rewarding love of Glora Delar, the most
beautiful actress of Lunarian Studio City.
He moved toward his wife. She backed away until she was standing with
her back against the colonnade; below them the Palisades dropped five
hundred feet into the sea-foam.
Her voice had an edge to it, a thin, petty whine. "You're sick, Andy;
your face looks funny. You scare me."
He stopped. Her grey Worker's uniform did nothing for her body. "You're
ugly," he said. "I'm leaving. You hate my face and I hate yours, so I'm
getting out."
She stared. "Andy! That's against the Law. Who ever heard of such a
thing?"
"You're hearing it, now," Andy said. "I can't stand living here with
you any more. I can't stand anything about you, or this beehive, so I'm
leaving."
"But--where can you go, Andy? They'll find you. Andy, listen to me:
You've been to Personology. They've examined you. You had that bad
accident at the take-off port; you made a mistake installing the fuel
capsule and there was an explosion. Men were killed. What did they
say at Personology?"
Brooks stared at the soft-calling Moon. Glora Delar was there tonight.
He whispered, "I wonder if she's as tired of being just an actress for
my dreams as I am of just dreaming of her?"
"Andy--what did they say at Personology?"
"Oh, a lot of stuff I didn't understand. What it amounts to is that I'm
crazy."
"Crazy?"
"Schizophrenia," Andy said. "Fantasy and reality mixed up--that's
what the Personologist Chief said. He said that always leads to
inefficiency. Remember the axiom, Brooks, he said: _No Worker Makes
Mistakes_."
"That's right, Andy. There's a place for dreaming; and there's a time
for working. You kept on thinking about that Glora Delar, even after
you got out of the Sensory Shows. You carried pictures of her. Always
re-reading those silly letters she sent you, after you wrote that
nonsense love note. Your room is filled with pin-ups of her. So you
went and had an accident. See, that proves the Personologist was right.
You made a mistake; men were killed."
Brooks looked at the Moon. "Two-hundred and forty thousand miles away,"
he mused, "is paradise."
"Ha!" His wife said. "She wouldn't use you for a doormat; you're just
part of another dream she has to act in, that's all. Why, you little
runt, she wouldn't give you a second look. Not even a first look.
You're a fool even if you aren't crazy!"
Brooks scarcely heard his wife's shrill voice. He had constructed a
dream world of his own named Anghar. On this world, he and the great
actress had lived through a thousand glorious adventures. Comparing his
wife with Glora Delar made the situation impossible. It was the same
with his wife, he knew. She had a Sensory Show hero, Clifford Marlowe,
with whom no mortal, least of all Andy Brooks, could ever compare.
All right, he had the answer to both of their problems; he was getting
out, tonight. He closed his eyes a moment. There was Glora Delar,
walking beside the Lost Sea of Anghar. "_Come back, my dear. The armies
of Vasca are at the Palace Gates and I pray for your return and the
strength of your arms and your love._"
"Andy! Look at me!"
"I'm tired of looking at you." Andy said and opened his eyes. "And
anyway, I have to run away. They're going to give me _directed_ Sensory
Shows. They're going to select all my entertainment for me, drive all
my own dreams out, drive Glora Delar out, and replace my free choice
entertainment with their own. He called it directive therapy. It will
cure me, make me an efficient Worker again. But it'll mean I won't love
Glora Delar anymore."
"Fool," she cried. "It's crazy to love our Actors and Actresses outside
the Sensory Shows!"
* * * * *
"That's what he told me," Andy said. "He said that Sensory Shows were
planned and provided for the Workers by Personology, just to keep
us sane and efficient. Our Actors and Actresses are for everyone's
benefit, he said; he said it was antisocial for me to want to
monopolize Glora Delar for myself."
"That's right, Andy; that's right."
"Oh, he was a great talker, the Personologist was. He said Personology
had saved the world from destruction. Once everyone was crazy, he
said, running around in a daze, with fantasy and reality all mixed up.
Made wars and criminals and neurotics, he said. Now we've got planned,
legalized fantasy in the Sensory Shows. A man can be a big-shot on
an imaginary world; he can have the support of the most beautiful
actresses and actors. Now there's a definite time for dreaming, one for
Working. Normally, one never overlaps the other."
"That's absolutely right, Andy; you should see that. I do."
"You're a shallow idiot," Andy said; "you're content to dream. I'm
not; I'm interested in the real Glora Delar. The dreams aren't enough
any more, not for me."
"Andy, you always were different. I could never figure you out, and I'm
not interested in trying. But all I've got to say is you're just not
using common sense. What if all us Workers who worship the Actors and
Actresses up on Hollywood II stormed the Moon? Took a million rockets
and all flew to the Moon! You are crazy, Andy. And think how wonderful
the Sensory Shows are! Work a few hours a week, and the rest of the
time you can live a beautiful life with actors and actresses who are so
good they can make you believe anything."
"Not me," Andy said. "If a dream can't come true, it's no good. So I'm
going to the moon, to Studio City; I'm going to find Glora Delar, in
person."
Her dull eyes bulged incredulously at him. "Andy! That's forbidden!
You'd be breaking a Class-A Law, and you know what happens to them that
does that?"
"I'm going," Andy said. "I can sneak aboard a moon rocket; I'm going
tonight."
"Andy, I'll tell! I'll not let you do it!"
Andy lunged. Her cries gurgled into silence under his fingers. He
lifted her shivering body up over the colonnade. "I figured you would,"
he said. "And then I figured that this way--you wouldn't."
[Illustration: Andy watched the woman fall.]
Her body fell into the darkness. Brooks stood there a long time gazing
down at the curling white foam of the breakers. It was like ripping
open a black hole and pouring the past into it. He closed up the hole
and turned. He could never have submitted to _directed_ Sensory Shows,
so he had to fight.
In the old days a man could fight for what he loved, even if success
was impossible. It was pursuit that counted, the pursuit of happiness
that had made men and nations strong--when there _had_ been men and
nations. Andy's heart beat wildly as he went down the escalator.
He might not succeed, but he would have the pleasure of trying the
forbidden and incredible; he would crash the gates of Studio City on
the Moon.
* * * * *
The pilot was forward in the cage checking the pre-navigation controls.
Brooks slipped into the freight chamber and crawled behind newly loaded
packing cases. His skin tingled, and his breathing was rapid.
His audacity had been the big factor in his successfully sneaking
aboard the new Moon supply rocket. It was inconceivable that anyone
would so much as think of breaking a Class-A Law; the punishment was
extreme. Only a few select personnel, other than the Stars, including
producers and directors and psycho-genic-radial screen projection
artists and the like, ever made the flight. And for them, it was always
a one-way trip. Only the pilot and the Security Guard accompanying the
flight ever returned from the Moon, and they never left the rocket
while on the Moon. The rocket always returned immediately to Earth.
A veil of glamorous mystery surrounded the Stars and their fabulous
Studio City.
Brooks' familiarity with the take-off field, where he had worked as a
mechanic and fuelman until his negligence had caused the big blow-up,
his knowledge of its arrangement and schedule had enabled him to don
a mechanic's uniform in the locker room, get an electrodrill from the
supply house for use as an excuse for boarding the rocket. Boarding, he
went unnoticed. Mild confusion always reigned about the rocket prior to
take-off; no one had noticed that he had not come out of the rocket.
And luckily for him, Personology had removed all personnel who had
been employed at the field at the time of the disaster, for therapy.
Personology always looked out for the Workers.
So Brooks lay in darkness, shivering with excitement that was partly
fear. The muffled thunderous explosion engulfed him; the area around
him vibrated smoothly. The rocket was lifting. Even protected as he
was by the inflated shock-cushion Andy had dug out of a freight
room storage locker, the pressure was intense. He blacked out and he
knew he had been out a long time when his own groaning awakened him.
He grabbed at the edge of a packing case to pull himself erect. The
effort smashed him up into the ceiling. Blood ran down his face. He was
weightless now, in space; he moved around a little, careful to hold on
to something. Then Andy stared at the dim shadow of the bulkhead door;
he licked his lips slowly.
The throbbing of his pulse became thunderous. The emptiness in his
stomach turned to nausea. This was real adventure, not a dream. But it
would have to end somewhere--sometime. He rubbed his lips and sweat ran
down his face. What then? A Class-A Law said no one was to go to the
Moon. But why was it so important? What was so wrong about actually
seeing the Actors and Actresses? About seeing the big production
factories where they acted out one's dreams?
His flesh seemed cold and feverish at once. The penalty made him
wince. Condemnation to the Experimental Stations, a fate normally
reserved for hereditary and incurable mental defectives. Experiments
involving spaceflight which so far no human body had been able to
sustain beyond a few million miles; brain surgery; body-structural
alterations. There were other experiments not commonly discussed. No
one looked forward to breaking a Class-A Law; no one survived the
experiments. It was capital punishment that benefited the Order, and
therefore it was good.
But not for Andy Brooks. Yet there was no turning back now. Murder was
also an infringement of Class-A Law--but that might be considered an
accident; anyone could fall from a balcony, or jump.
Andy thought, briefly, of his wife. Very briefly. She was dead. It
didn't seem very important whether she was dead or not. She had stood
in his way; that had been important. There had never been anything
between them anyway but a silent bitter futile hatred for each other's
unattractiveness. She loved Clifford Marlowe, the great Actor; he
loved Glora Delar, the Actress. No mortal could compare with either
of them; no one felt any emotional regard for anyone else. Emotion
was confined to the Sensory Shows. A time for emotion and dreaming
and wish-fulfillment; a time for Working--the two never got mixed up.
That's what Personology had told him.
Brooks was trying to figure out what he would do when the rocket hit
the Moon, when it dropped into the depth of Theophilus' 18,000 foot, 65
mile-wide crater and into the City of Stars. He was concentrating on
that when the bulkhead door began to open.
* * * * *
Brooks gnawed at his lips as he crouched behind the door. The Security
Guard entered, checking probably for possible weight shift. Holstered
to the belt of his gray uniform was a neurotube and a meson blastgun.
The continuing cold war with the Eastern Alliance necessitated constant
preparedness against possible espionage. That's what Personology said.
As the Guard turned to exit, he saw Brooks. His eyes widened
remarkably. His hands moved out as though questioning Brooks' reality.
Without thinking, Brooks leaped, his breath breaking harshly. The Guard
grabbed wildly at Brooks' wrist and they fell back, scrambling and
grunting. The fall broke the Guard's hold; Brooks slammed the drill
against the Guard's chest and squeezed the trigger release.
The gentle whir of the drill was drowned by the Guard's short,
incredulous scream of pain. Blood spilled over the drill and ran down
Brooks' arm as the Guard rolled lifelessly against the wall, trembled
slightly with the dropping, decelerating motion of the rocket.
Brooks leaned against the wall. The silence was vast. He looked at his
fingers as he sensed the rocket settling. It was done, really done now;
he could not change it back. His wife's body falling into the blackness
had seemed a kind of unreal thing, but this was horribly real. The
Guard would never worry any more about dreams, or about reality,
either. Maybe he was luckier than most, maybe luckier than Andy Brooks,
the mechanic who had stopped machinery no mechanic could repair.
This was murder for which Andy would pay, but that didn't matter. He
had broken a Class-A Law when he boarded the moon rocket. There were
no degrees of guilt. The thought gave him a kind of freedom inside, a
sudden snapping of strings and singing of breaking wires.
He took the neurotube from the Guard. It did things to the nervous
system, including paralysis and blackout. Its sustained use could cause
death. He didn't take the meson blastgun; it was too lethal, and he
was afraid of it. He slipped along the grillmesh corridor and crouched
outside the door into the pilot's cage. He stared at the pilot's back,
past the pilot into the view screen. The Moon was as big as Earth
below, sharp angles of light and shadow, gigantic craters and pools of
glaring frozen lava.
The purple-black shadows of Theophilus' walls dropped around the
rocket. Far below like a dot of glittering ice was the white-domed
brilliance of Studio City. Brooks stared in awed wonderment. Maybe
this was a dream, too; it was too fabulous to be real. A Worker--on
the Moon! A Worker actually being a part of Hollywood II's legendary
marvels! He could see the big production factories where the Stars
acted out a man's dreams, where the big psychogenic radial projection
screens performed their miraculous function.
On Earth, the millions of ardent fans spent all possible time in the
Sensory Shows. A small dark chamber. A beam of light, a whiff of gas,
music. You didn't look at it; you were in it. Your wishes took form.
Actors and Actresses of your choice supported you. It was touch, taste,
action, emotion. It was so real that no Worker cared to dream during
Working hours. In the Sensory Show chamber he could be anything, on any
one of many possible worlds. He could be a beggar, a King, a soldier,
or a god.