It _was_ a phony of course. Despite Vern's failure to signal for a
double-check, the WPA had delayed publication and run the circuits.
Similar but not identical stories had gone into Scoops in 14 major
cities, all at the same time today; each involved a near death or
disaster, with a reference to a recognizable gift that couldn't be
edited out. In each case the Source was a retailer visiting that
city--and yet the stores and 14 retailers matched up perfectly.
In our particular "accident," the woman turned out to be a clandestine
actress--they had all virtually disappeared after the Edict, needless
to say--hired for her ability to fall and fake injury convincingly.
She hadn't cut herself on the glass, only burst a hidden capsule of
her own blood drawn off weeks before. The actual gash in her throat
was made with a shard of glass by the "unidentified passerby"--really
the Flack himself--when he saw the store doctor coming. The
artificially-stimulated birth of twins that had delayed the doctor, had
also been part of the Plant.
The doctor was found innocent. The guard, only true victim of the plot,
was cited as unobservant but not held for correction. The Flack, the
actress, the mother of the twins and the visiting retailer were, before
my shift was half over, sentenced for conspiracy to deceive and falsely
advertise in violation of the Edict, as were the culprits in the 13
other Plants. Their conviction was the play story, all editions in the
10:00 hours _Sun_.
All that, to remind people about gifts, and Crimmus. The WPA had
exposed the plot, and printed the truth about it as no human
news-reporting agency could have.
Even so, I wondered, if, despite the Edict and WPA, the Flacks hadn't
gotten their Crimmus reminder before the public, after all. I stared in
at the Scoop.
Physically, the Scoop is just a short, thick tube projecting from a
blank wall; it ends in a round orifice covered by a grille, and is
adjustable to the height of the speaker. Below it is an ID sensor
plate, and above it, the viewer and the preamble to the Edict.
The Scoop isn't large. But it gives man a voice no man ever had before:
it could bring his words almost instantly to men throughout the world.
It is the ultimate in the communication that mankind has sought down
from the dawning of intelligence. Only one condition must be met, and
only one thing those words must, according to the Edict, be:
"... Wholly and in part demonstrably true."
* * * * *
Think about it a minute. In the earliest days, communication was
between two men only. If the first lied, only two people, the liar and
the victim, were affected. Later, as civilization developed through
improved communication--more abstract lingual concepts, systems of
writing, methods of transportation--a word could travel faster and
farther, and affect more and more people. The numbers hearing a man's
speech and being touched by his words grew at the same time larger
and closer to him, as his methods of addressing them went farther and
farther out.
Great truths were produced by closer collaboration, as communications
improved. But with imperfect regulation, great lies went out too,
magnified by the same communications. One man's lies could poison an
entire nation, and afflict the entire world.
It had to stop and, after the Third War, the Edict stopped it.
Just as cybernetic democracy brought true justice to government,
the incorruptible and infallible machines brought just truth to
communication, through control of mass media.
Of course it meant the end of written and portrayed fiction; for who
could tell when a fiction, faultily understood would be believed, and a
lie derived?
Of course it meant the end of competitive advertising and, to a large
extent, competing products. One depilatory is not truly, demonstrably
better than another. No car is superior to another in appreciable
degree. And no institution requiring false images of such superiority
can contribute to a civilization facing reality. If a product can't be
sold on the basis of true fact, it has no place in the market.
Of course it meant other necessary changes in the economy; for without
predictions of mythical profits or hypothetical success, banned by the
Edict, who would invest? What human could surely forecast profits or
success? Congris now decides such matters, and the result has been a
stable economy.
Of course it meant alteration of personal relationships. All too
often the so-called "love" of one another was founded on deliberate
deception, or self-delusion fostered by fiction. "Love" letters,
and with them the extravagant posturings of romance, ceased almost
to exist, through postal censorship under the Edict. All but known
truth was eliminated from schoolbooks, to the detriment only of the
romanticized, and thus probably false, past. Surrounded by fact, human
relationships have become factual. Hypocrisy, deceit, exaggeration are
against the law.
Granted, the per capita ratio of marriages, and weddings once a desired
child is to be born, have decreased. But so have the divorces, both
overt and covert, that once resulted from disillusion.
In the same way, parents and children assess their true feelings toward
each other and, sometimes, rearrange themselves--or on application are
rearranged. It makes for a far more practical allotment, often, than
the hit-or-miss distribution of children previously.
Life, freed from the phantoms and fairies inspired by spurious
children's tales, by adult daydreams, deception and delusion, is less
complex, more direct than it was 50 years ago. It permits a far greater
attention to the details of present existence; for once you realize how
little good it does to dwell on an unknowable future, the immediate and
provable present becomes important indeed.
If sometimes this present seems to lack a luster that older people say
they remember, at least no flaws have been concealed by that luster. At
last mankind can see exactly what he is, and where he stands.
Myth, prediction, speculation, promise, aspiration, hope: these fog
the mind with illusion and paralyze the hand with doubt. The present
suffices for itself.
V
All the wrong things were in the face of the man I saw approaching
now, through the tube from the elevator. You know how you can spot
the dreamers? I could see it on this one 50 yards away, and I swore,
because it was almost time for my shift to end.
He came on, hurrying with that expression in his eyes, a little girl
trotting after him. They were father and daughter. Both had the look,
though he seemed a little old to have a young child.
He passed the outer gate well enough, fumbling his ID against the
lockplate and fidgeting during the seconds it took for preliminary
verification to come. The lock clicked and he burst in, pulling the
girl after him.
"We wish to report ..." he began. I waved at him to shut up. "Name,
number and duty," I said. "That's the routine." Of course the
information had typed out from the banks before he got in.
"Oh. I'm sorry." I think he really was. "My name is Karl Onlon,
professor of elementary biology, downstairs." That meant he tended
a teaching machine at the center mid-town branch of the university.
"Number ... my number is--" and he peered at his ID "--ah, US1006-929
113 274CE."
The point of asking for name, number and duty is to let the Source cool
down a bit. He had, a little, so I said, "Okay, what's your story?"
"We wish to report signs of the presence of a herd of small ruminant
animals in Central Park Memorial Plaza," he said. He waved toward the
patch of white-mottled brown about a kilometer away, where dirt and
rocks and a whole lake had been raised to rooftop level for an open-air
park. Naturally, that was done when pointless things were still being
done.
"What you tell me doesn't matter as far as appearing in the _Sun_
is concerned," I told him. "But I have to know details before I can
pass you in to the Scoop. The World Press Association decides on the
stories." He nodded. "You are the Source?"
"Ah ... actually, no," Onlon said. "I'm the Second. My daughter Gini--"
he'd been standing with his arm around the little girl, and squeezed
her shoulder "--is the, uh, Source. But she is a very sensible person,
and I will vouch for--Second--anything she tells you."
Truly, I was already getting a little uncomfortable with this pair. The
girl hadn't said anything, but she stood looking grave and important,
and something else too, up at her father. Open pride, it looked like.
Yet sometimes she almost smiled. He was earnest enough, except when he
looked down at her.
I was weighing all this while I listened with half an ear to the story.
This wasn't a Flack, or a Flack's trick. That I was certain of. You can
tell. Deviates don't come in father-daughter pairs, so it wasn't an
obscenity kick. And this wasn't a Scoop-smash.
I didn't think it was a news story, either. But Onlon seemed quite
convinced that this pack of animals that left the tracks was rare, not
only in Nork but anywhere. The tracks were distinctive, he said. And
the girl, whose voice matched her face, grave yet with a kind of ...
happiness in it, did seem sensible. So I passed them in, to the Scoop.
Odd, I thought of Sara as I did it.
"I don't think this will make the paper," I warned them. "Children
don't make good Sources. And your being her father weakens the Second.
This herd, or whatever it was, could have been a dog or rat pack ...
there still are some in Central Park. But the Greeley'll decide. Go on
in."
As the glass door swung shut behind them, he held it and said, "They're
early, you see." And I swear the little girl giggled.