"How's the Assistant Director of Sensory Communications doing these
days?" Gil asked as they walked across the room to a plastic table on
which rested bowls of red, green, and yellow liquors.
"Right and light. We've got a new show scheduled to go on the
Distributor Cable in about another month. Runs twenty minutes two times
a day. Morning and night. A serial about the Council."
Gil turned to Brant with a drink in his hand. "Thought nobody knew
anything about the Council except that they run Dreamtown."
"No one does know very much about them. No one's ever seen them
actually. But we've heard rumors that the Rebels have been influencing
some of our citizens and word has come down to build this show for
morale purposes."
"Why, that's crazy. Who'd want to go back to the way it was before?
Those Rebels are out of their heads!"
Brant smiled. "Right man. But there are still some of them operating
in the less populated areas. The Watchers brought in seven men and a
woman last week from somewhere south of here. They found books in their
hideout and even some paintings that one of the Rebels claimed to have
done by hand."
Gil whistled through his teeth. "You'd think they'd get with it and
come back here. What are they getting out of this rebellion?"
Brant reached over and touched Gil's arm.
"Just between us, friend. Before they psychwashed these Rebels they
found out that they had been plotting with other Rebel groups to
overthrow Dreamtown. The Council has every available Watcher on their
trail."
"Couldn't ever happen, Brant. They don't have anything to fight with.
Books. Pictures. They'll wise up and come over to us. Wait and see."
Brant shrugged. "They forget we're living in 2054 and the Big War's
been over for nearly seventy years. They still think the old way was
pretty good. But Gil, boy, we're getting serious. Let's stack it! The
Watchers will get them. It's not our problem."
* * * * *
The girl was gazing through one of the windows in the small farmhouse
kitchen. A wild flower was pinned in her long, auburn hair and it
matched, almost perfectly, the blue of her eyes. Even in slacks she
was, not beautiful, but a wonderfully pretty girl of twenty four or
five.
"I wonder when he'll be back, Dad. It's been almost two days and I--I'm
worried."
"He had a long trip to make, Nancy. Longer than usual because he had
to make a detour around Dreamtown in order to get down to Ben's group.
It's all of forty miles south of here. Don't you worry. He'll be back
soon."
The girl came away from the window and kissed Professor Alan Corbett
on the forehead. "You're wonderful, Dad. So calm and sensible about
things. I get scared though when I think of Dan going so close to
Dreamtown. The Watchers patrol for miles around the city and they'd
know Dan was a Rebel in a minute because of his clothes."
"Dan won't get caught, Nancy. You get busy now and make some coffee and
stop worrying," Professor Corbett smiled. "And afterward we'll play a
little gin rummy if you feel like it."
Nancy got up from the table and put the coffee pot on the stove. Her
father turned back to the book lying open on the table before him.
"This is such a treasure, Nancy. I wonder if you fully realize it." It
was a copy of the complete works of William Shakespeare. "There are
only five copies of this still in existence to my knowledge; although
there is a man in Ben's group who has been copying it by hand on paper
they've stolen from Dreamtown. Only five copies. There might be more,
but we haven't been able to find them."
Nancy poured steaming coffee into her father's cup and then into her
own. She sat across from him at the table and watched as he lovingly
examined the book in his hands.
"Listen to this, Nancy."
Nancy listened to Professor Corbett's quiet voice.
"Is she kind as she is fair?
For Beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair
To help him of his blindness,
And, being helped, inhabits there."
"It's beautiful, Dad."
Nancy watched her father as his eyes scanned the rest of the page. "You
love books, don't you?" she asked softly.
Her father looked up and took off his glasses. "Yes, Nancy, I guess
I do. Teaching in the University was the greatest thing in my life
because I was able to spend so much time with books. And, you know, in
a way, they weren't just books, they were like old friends. Socrates,
Aristotle, Chaucer, Shakespeare--all the others. Every time I picked
up one of those books it was like meeting old friends. And you never
really get tired of old friends, you know. As the years go by they
become dearer to you and you learn to appreciate their true value."
Professor Corbett smiled a little sadly. "Nancy, it almost broke my
heart when the Council abolished the schools and colleges and burned
the books. That was the reason I joined the Rebels ever so long ago.
And, of course, there were many others who felt as I did."
Nancy sipped the hot coffee and watched her father drift into his
reverie about the old days before there had been a Council or Watchers
and when Dreamtown had really been just what the name implied. A dream
city of books and learning and hard working men and women trying to put
a civilization back on its feet after the disastrous Big War. Nancy
thought of the kind of dreams that were dreamed in the city now. Dreams
of pleasure and sensation. Empty dreams. Vapid dreams.
"Do you know what the Council set up in place of the schools, Nancy?
They built the biggest and brightest and most terrible playgrounds in
the world. Children were taught to fight and to play; and the ones who
fought hardest, regardless of rules, were considered the champions
in each playground. They didn't bother to learn anything; they just
played...." His voice trailed off.
Nancy and her father drank their coffee in silence, each of them alone
with their thoughts. Professor Corbett was back in his University
classroom filled with the smell of chalk and the musty odor of books,
and Nancy was out in the dark night somewhere with Dan, making the
perilous journey to Ben's Rebel group.
A sudden sound on the porch shocked both of them back to reality.
Professor Corbett quickly dropped his book into a drawer of the table,
rose and walked past Nancy who stared at the door with a mixture of
hope and fear on her face. A soft knock sounded and, after a moment's
hesitation, Nancy's father unbolted and opened the door.
A tall young man wearing an old pair of blue jeans and a shirt from
which most of the buttons were missing stood in the doorway.
"Dan!" Nancy shouted and ran across the room and into his arms.
His huge frame almost filled the doorway, as he bowed, his blonde head
to murmur reassurances to Nancy, who cried with relief at having him
safely back.
"I'm alright, darling,--but I'm afraid I've got bad news," Dan said. He
released Nancy, keeping one of her hands in his. When the three of them
were seated Dan spoke.
"The Watchers must have gotten Ben and the others. The place was a
shambles. Everything was destroyed. They probably took the group to
Dreamtown. If they did, you know what that means."
"Psychwashing," Professor Corbett muttered. He dropped his head in his
hands. "Then you couldn't get the books?" he asked sadly.
"No. They had been burned. And so had Ben's paintings. We can't
wait any longer, Alan. We've got to organize and we've got to raid
Dreamtown. We can't go on like this anymore!"
Nancy tightened her grip on Dan's hand as Professor Corbett raised his
head and nodded. "You're right, Dan," he said. "We can't afford to wait
any longer."
* * * * *
With a slight hum the large video panel in the ceiling of Brant's
apartment clicked on automatically. To the accompaniment of shrill
laughter in the background, the announcer told Brant and the other
viewers that they were about to witness the next installment in the
adventures of "The Pretty People." Brant stretched in his bed and
groaned from the effects of the party the night before. He watched
through half closed eyes as The Pretty People in their harlequin
costumes chased each other about a meadow filled with artificial
flowers. In spite of his discomfort Brant chuckled when Mannequina,
with a violent blow, knocked Manequin from a large toadstool on which
he had been seated. He laughed again as he watched Manequin roll down a
hill and land in a giant mud puddle at the bottom.
Brant eased himself out of bed and walked unsteadily to the cubicle in
one corner of the room, stepped in, and closed the plastic door behind
him. He rubbed his eyes and stretched as the soothing vigoro-senso rays
removed the last traces of the discomfort brought on by too much liquor
and too many sensation pills.
Back in his room he switched on the dimensional theater set and watched
the wall light up before him. Brant finished dressing to the sounds of
laughter coming from The Pretty People on the ceiling video and the
sighs and pleadings of two lovers in the dimensional theater set.
On his way to the door Brant selected one of the milder sensation pills
from the bowl on the low table, swallowed it, and passed through the
sliding door panel into the street.
He glanced at the gigantic clock which was suspended over the city like
a cloud in the sky by thin steel cables. Each numeral on the huge face
of the clock was composed of a man and a woman locked in an ardent
embrace.
Brant and several other people boarded one of the moving platforms as
it stopped before them. The city sped by in a vari-colored blur. At the
main Sensory Communications Building Brant got off. The building loomed
massive before him, its rose plastic exterior warm looking in the
sunlight. Brant, with another glance skyward at the clock, went inside.
He walked briskly down the jade hall and entered an office labeled
Assistant Director of Sensory Communications.
Lisa, seated behind a desk, greeted him. "We've got sun this morning,
Brant. Have a good time last night?"
"Had a ball, doll! You look great this morning." Brant said. "Benton in
yet?"
"Waiting for you," Lisa replied. "Told me to send you right in."
Brant turned and entered the inner office of Axel Benton, Director of
Sensory Communications for Dreamtown.
Benton looked up and frowned as Brant entered. "The show on the
Council has to go on two weeks earlier," he fairly shouted at Brant.
"The Minister of Entertainment called this morning and he's hot! Says
the Council is having a fit about the increase in activity among the
Rebels; and rumors have been leaking out that they're planning to
destroy Dreamtown. So they want the show on sooner. Also, they want a
half hour show instead of twenty minutes."
"Nobody cares what the Rebels are doing and it's crazy to think they
could destroy the city. So what's all the rush about?" Brant asked
angrily.
"I figured you'd talk that way so I arranged a little session for you
this morning that may bring you to your senses, bright boy Brant,"
Benton retorted. He barked into the intercom on the desk.
"Call downstairs and have them send up Jennings, Lisa," Benton ordered.
A few minutes later the door slid open and Jennings was led in by two
of the Watchers. He was a middle aged man who wore spectacles instead
of the contact lenses which nearly everyone in Dreamtown wore when they
needed glasses. The two Watchers stepped aside. They were young men,
neither looked more than twenty five, with eyes as brittle as glass.
Their black leather pants and jackets fitted tightly and steel cleats
on their heavy boots grated wickedly on the floor with each step they
took. Their hands, in black leather gloves, rested casually on their
hips close to the hypno ray guns fastened to their belts.
"Jennings," Benton began, "was found to be in possession of a book
titled 'Principles of Human Knowledge' by George Berkeley. And
Jennings, as you know, Brant, was in a strategic control position here
in the Center. He was in charge of show censorship for the whole Com
center.
"What do you mean, _was_ in charge?" Brant asked.
"Just that! He is no longer in charge. In fact, he is being taken now
by these Watchers to the psych lab but I wanted you to realize the
seriousness of this thing, Brant, so I had him brought here first."
"He's going to be psychwashed?" Brant asked.
"Of course, you fool!"
"But why? Couldn't you just burn the book and throw him out?" Brant
asked.
"I wouldn't expect you to understand," Benton sneered. "The book he had
is one of the most dangerous books ever written. It is against every
principle on which Dreamtown is founded and if Lisa hadn't found it in
his office--."
"Lisa found it?" Brant asked.
"Yes, and like the smart girl she is, she reported him to the Watchers
right away." Benton motioned to the two Watchers and they stiffened
immediately, seized Jennings who stared silently before him, and half
dragged him from the room.
"I never would have thought it of Jennings," Brant said softly.
"That's just it! We can't be too careful," Benton said.
"Are you sure he was a Rebel?" Brant asked.
Benton's fist made a crashing sound as he brought it down on the desk.
"Idiot!" he screamed. "What else could he be? No one but a Rebel would
read such trash! Now get out of here, Brant. I want the format for the
Council show finished in two days or you're going to find yourself in
real big trouble! Seeing Jennings should wake you up and start you
moving!"