Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Abbr.
BY FRANK RILEY
_Brevity was the new watchword.
Vrythg dgstd stht lsrcdb njyd._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Walther Von Koenigsburg woke up a few moments after the earth shuttle
had passed Venus. As he gazed back at the lonely, shrouded planet,
abandoned long ago when Man won freedom to colonize more habitable
worlds in deep space, Walther realized that in just a matter of minutes
his long pilgrimage would be over. Soon he would walk down the ramp and
set foot on Earth--the almost mythical homeland of his people. Walther
was young enough, and old enough, not to be ashamed of the sudden
choking in his throat, the moisture in his eyes.
A light touch on his shoulder brought him back to the shuttle ship. The
pert stewardess smiled at his start.
"Wyslgsr," she asked pleasantly.
Or at least that's what it sounded like to Walther, whose ears were
still ringing from the take off at the Cyngus III shuttleport.
"I beg your pardon," he began. "I'm afraid...."
For a moment she looked startled, then her full, red lips parted in
another bright smile.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she exclaimed. "I didn't realize ... I just asked,
Sir, whether you had been sleeping."
She spoke with the mechanical, stilted perfection he had first noted
when transferring from the Aldebaran liner at the shuttleport. He had
wondered, briefly, about the source of the accent, but had been too
polite to ask.
The stewardess put a small pillow in his lap, then placed a tray on
it. The recessed compartments of the tray held a cup of steaming black
coffee, a piece of pastry that reminded Walther of apfelstrudel, and a
paper-covered booklet entitled: "Easy Earth Dictionary and Orientation
Manual". Stamped on the cover, in the manner of an official seal, were
the words: "Prepared under the authorization of Happy Time, Ltd."
"Thank you," said Walther, then he grinned buoyantly, eager to share
these moments of excitement at being so close to Earth. "But I don't
think I'll need the dictionary!"
Tiny frown lines appeared between the stewardess's carefully arched
eyebrows.
"Hg su'v rthsr?" she inquired uncertainly.
"I don't understand...."
The stewardess managed a professional smile that was edged with just
the faintest touch of impatience.
"That's what I thought. What I asked, Sir, was how long since you've
been on Earth?"
"This is my first visit!"
"Then you had better study the dictionary," she said firmly.
"Oh, no, I really don't need it!" Walther's inner excitement showed
in the flush of his fair Nordic complexion. He turned toward her in a
burst of confidence. "You see, my people always kept alive their native
languages. My father's side of the family was German ... and down
through all the generations they've managed to teach the language to
their children! It was the same way with my mother's family, who were
English...." Pride came into his voice: "I could speak both languages
by the time I was four."
"And you've never taken this shuttle from Cyngus?"
"I've never been on Cyngus before--nor on Aldebaran VI--Deneb II--or
Arcturus IX," explained Walther, naming the farflung way station across
the galaxy. He added: "I'm on my way in from Neustadt--Andromeda, you
know."
Respect replaced the hint of impatience in the stewardess's smile,
which instantly became more personal. Not for generations had a
colonist from the Andromeda galaxy boarded this shuttle; the Andromeda
run, across 1,500,000 light years of space, could be made only by
special charter, at a fantastic cost. This blonde young man with
the stubborn chin and sensitive mouth was obviously a colonial of
tremendous wealth.
The pilot's buzzer sounded, and a red light flickered on the Passenger
Instruction panel.
"I have to go forward now," the stewardess said, regretfully. "We're
entering the warp, and it's time to prepare for landing. Maybe
later...."
She let the invitation trail off, and left him with a very special
smile.
Walther understood the smile. He was a young man, but he was no fool.
In the trading centers of Andromeda many women smiled at him that way
when they learned he was a Von Koenigsburg from Neustadt.
He dunked the pastry in the black coffee, took a generous bite and
settled back to be alone with his thoughts. An earth woman was not an
essential part of the dream that had taken him on this quixotic voyage.
True, there might be a woman who would come to love him enough so that
she would leave the old world culture and graciousness of Earth for
the colonial life on the immense frontier of Andromeda. But, being of
an age where the dreams of youth are merging with practicality, Walther
rather doubted he would find such a woman.
He didn't doubt that the rest of his dream would come gloriously to
life.
While the shuttleship whirled without motion through the voidless void
of hyper space, Walther smiled at the prospect ahead. Six months to
immerse himself in the wonder of Earth's culture! Six months to enjoy
the whole of it, instead of nourishing the few precious fragments kept
alive by his family through the first centuries of colonial life in the
new galaxy.
Delightful evenings at the symphony and the opera! Beethoven, Verdi,
Brahms, Schubert and Wagner! Wagner!--Perhaps he would even be able
to attend a performance of Die Meistersinger. Walther smiled to
himself. His great, great grandfather, who had first discovered the
incredibly rich mines, forests and black loam of Neustadt, had started
the tradition of naming the first son Walther, after the whimsical
Meistersinger, Walther von der Vogelweide.
Then there would be leisurely afternoons in the great libraries and
museums! All the great classics of literature and art, instead of
the few faded pictures and the handful of volumes in the high beamed
library of his family castle. The infrequent ships that traveled
between the fringes of the two galaxies had little room for books
and art treasures. Three years ago, on the occasion of Walther's
twenty-first birthday, his mother had broken down in tears as she told
of trying for half a decade to order a set of Goethe as a coming of
age present for him. But after the request had finally reached Earth,
some clerk had garbled the order and sent a four-page booklet that
apparently was some kind of puzzle-book for children.
Now he could steep himself in Goethe, Schiller, Dickens, Maupassant,
Tolstoi!
And best of all the conversation! The delicate art of communicating
mind with mind! What tales he would have to tell when he sat again in
the family banquet hall! How his mother's eyes would sparkle! How his
father would roar with delight as he recounted some rapier-like _bon
mot_....
But all this was only the small part of the dream. The small, personal
part. The dream itself was so much bigger, as big as a dream must be
to carry over from youth to manhood. He had first dreamed it as a boy,
sitting on the hearth rug with his knees tucked up under his chin,
watching the great leaping fire, while behind him in the shadows his
grandfather played on the old violin. _Meditation_, his grandfather
had called it. By a long ago composer of Earth, a man strangely named
Thais. His grandfather couldn't play very much of it, but the fragment
had lodged in Walther's heart and would be there to the end of his life.
Walther's dream was indeed a grand dream, shaped of a melody and
leaping flames. He would not spend his lifetime wresting more wealth
from the riches of Neustadt. That had been done for him; the challenge
was gone. But someday he would make the journey to Earth, and bring
back with him enough of the beauty and culture to make Neustadt a
miniature Earth, out on the rim of Andromeda.
It was indeed a grand dream. He would spend his wealth for books and
music and treasures of art. He would try to bring back artists and
teachers, too, and from Neustadt would spread the wonder of the new,
old culture; it would reach out to all the colonies of the Andromeda
galaxy, giving texture to life. And it would be there like a shining
beacon when Man made his next great step across space, across the
millions of light years to the Camora galaxy, and beyond....
The stewardess again touched his shoulder, with a gesture that was not
entirely according to shuttleship regulations.
"We're through the warp and are now in orbit," she said. "We'll land at
Uniport in three minutes."
Uniport! The fabled entry port of Earth! It was the new hub, the
pulsing heart of the homeland. It was the syndrome of all Earth
culture, and its stratoways reached out like spokes of a spidery wheel
to every city of the planet.
Walther's knees were a little shaky as he moved down the ramp, and
the moisture in the corners of his eyes was not caused by the sleety
December wind that whipped across the vast landing area. He was on
Earth. He was the first of his people to return to the fatherland that
had cradled them and sent them out into the universe.
When the stewardess said good-by to him at the foot of the ramp, she
looked both puzzled and disappointed. Her smile had been an invitation,
and she had sensed the tug of it in his answering grin. But he only
tipped his hat, and went on into the customs office.
He felt like a small boy suddenly confronted by so many delights that
he knew not which to sample first.
* * * * *
"Destination?"
The customs officer's blue pencil poised over the question on the
Uniport entry form. Walther shrugged carelessly.
"Oh, I'll look around Uniport awhile, then visit other cities ... New
York ... London ... Vienna.... I have six months, you know."
"I know--I'm sure you'll enjoy your happy time. But you must have a
destination--someplace where you can be contacted, or leave forwarding
addresses." The official's voice was patient, but it had the curious
mechanical quality Walther had noted in speech of the pretty young
stewardess.
"Can you recommend good lodging?"
"The Uniport landing provides excellent facilities, and you'll be among
other travelers until you have a chance to adjust yourself to happy
time activities."
"Oh, no! I don't want to waste a moment! I want to live among the
people of Earth from this very first night!"
The customs officer peered at Walther's entry permit.
"Andromeda ... that's what I thought." He shook his head dubiously.
"You have your Orientation Manual?"
Walther fumbled in the pockets of his greatcoat.
"I must have left it on the shuttleship, but I don't need it."
The official pressed another copy of the manual firmly into Walther's
hands.
"It is required," he said. "First visitors are not allowed to leave the
Uniport landing without one."
Walther was too happy to argue. He shoved the manual into one of
pockets.
"If I may suggest, Sir," said the customs officer, his eyes widening as
he looked over Walther's letters of credit, "You will find the Hotel
Altair most comfortable. It's where all important visitors in Uniport
stay."
The next few moments went by so quickly they left Walther a little
dazed. A servo-robot took his bags and led him to a monorail car, which
whisked him off to the hotel.
"Gdegr," said the doorman, another servo-robot, in a brilliant scarlet
uniform. Its wax-like features were set in a perpetual smile.
Walther blinked.
"I'm sorry," he began. "I--"
"Thayr," said the majestic robot, taking Walther's handtooled overnight
bag and motioning imperiously for two bellhop robots to bring the rest
of the luggage. Silent and smiling, they leaped to obey.
The desk clerk was a human, and greeted Walther with an efficient:
"Wemtalr."
He offered Walther a pen and a registration card on which appeared some
undecipherable combination of letters.
Walther began to have a sense of unreality about the whole thing, as if
he were still day-dreaming in the Venus warp.
"Really," he said, "I seem to be quite confused--"
With a smile of sudden comprehension, the clerk produced a Manual and
thumbed rapidly through its pages. He pointed to a phrase with the tip
of his pen, and Walther read:
What price room do you desire?
Opposite these words was the phonetic jumble:
Whprumuirer?
Walther shrugged to indicate that price was not important, but his
thoughts were spinning. And they were still spinning when the robot
bellhop left him alone in his suite. The possibility of a language
barrier on Earth was something he had never considered. With only six
months planned for his visit, it would be impossible to learn a new
language and still do all he had dreamed of doing.
But the Von Koenigsburgs were noted for their stubbornness. Walther's
chin set, and he opened the Manual to learn what this was all about.
He promptly realized that this was a Manual only for the most
elementary needs of conversation, and that a great amount of study
would be necessary for normal discourse. The first section of the
Manual devoted a short chapter to each of the basic languages of
Earth. Turning from one to another, Walther discovered that an extreme
degree of condensation had taken place in all languages. It was as
though a form of speedwriting and shorthand had been vocalized.
But why? What did it mean?
Walther found a partial explanation in the Orientation section which
began:
"Be brief!"
"Soyez bref!"
"Mach' es kurz!"
"Sea breze!"
In a score of languages, first-time visitors were admonished that an
understanding of these two words was essential to getting maximum
enjoyment out of their stay on Earth.
"Even in an earlier age," the introduction pointed out, "the words 'Be
Brief' expressed the essence of a new way of life, a life in which
pace and tempo were all important. Later, as technology and automation
relieved man of the burden of labor, he realized that tempo was equally
important to fullest enjoyment of his happy time hours. You will
understand this better after a few pleasant days on Earth."
There was a false ring to the words that heightened Walther's sense of
forboding.
Under the glass top of his dressing table, he saw several brightly
colored, attractively illustrated notices. One in particular caught
his attention. It showed a young woman with lovely and poignantly
expressive features. Her hands were outstretched, as though she were
singing or engaged in a dramatic scene.
With the help of his Manual, Walther ascertained that the young woman
was named Maria Piavi, and that she was an Italian operatic soprano
appearing currently in Uniport with a New York company.
Walther's buoyancy began to return. What better way to become
acquainted with Earth's culture than to spend his first evening at the
opera? He removed the announcement with Maria Piavi's picture from
under the glass and stood it upright against the mirror.
Dinner in the hotel's main dining room was a confusing interlude. The
cuisine was superb, the robot waiter faultless--although Walther was
beginning to weary of their fixed smiles. But more irritating was the
flicker of huge, tri-dimensional television screens on the walls of the
dining room. When he deciphered his bill, he saw he had been taxed for
the TV entertainment.
After dinner, he showed the opera announcement to the hotel clerk,
and asked how to get there. The clerk wrote down the number of the
monorail car he was to take, but when Walther learned the opera house
was only six blocks away, he decided to walk. The clerk was aghast at
this, and followed him all the way to the sidewalk, waving his arms and
protesting in an hysterical jumble of consonants.
* * * * *
The opera house itself was a revelation. All he had dreamed of,
and more. The frescoed facade! The dazzling marquee! The crowd of
elegantly dressed men and women, animatedly speaking their strange
syllables as they watched a floor show in the lobby. When the floor
show ended, and the crowd shifted to the far end, where a pantomimist
was beginning his act, Walther had a dear view of the life-size cutout
of Maria Piavi in the center of the lobby.
He stood in front of it, staring with unashamed admiration. There was
an earthiness and warmth about her that reminded him of the young women
of his own planet. Paradoxically, there was also an air of remoteness
and rigid self-discipline, a sense of emotion eternally controlled.
He wondered which was the real Maria. Beside her picture was the
photograph of a peppery old man whom Walther was able to identify as
Willy Fritsh. The consonants under his name said he was now a producer,
and had formerly directed for many years.
Walther purchased his ticket without too much difficulty. The lights
blinked, and he followed the crowd into the orchestra section.
As he sank into the luxury of upholstered seat, Walther opened his
senses to the sounds and sights about him, the tingling scent of the
lovely women, the ebb and flow of indistinguishable conversation, the
strange, short bursts of music which he found to be emanating from a
tiny, jeweled radio in the purse of the woman who sat next to him.
His excitement and anticipation grew still greater when he carefully
deciphered the program and discovered that Maria Piavi was to sing
Gilda, in Rigoletto, this very evening. What unbelievable good luck!
Rigoletto, to commemorate his first evening on Earth! Walther vaguely
knew the story of the opera, but from earliest childhood he could
remember his mother singing snatches of _Caro Nome_ and _La donna e
mobile_. Now he would hear the entire arias, the full score of this
masterpiece.
Suddenly all was quiet. The orchestra rose swiftly into view in front
of the stage. The white-haired leader bowed. There was an eruption of
applause, as brief as the crack of a rocket breaking the sound barrier.
The golden baton rose, a glorious burst of music filled the opera house
and the velvet curtain zipped upward so rapidly that the blinking of an
eye would have missed it.
The opening scene of festal entertainment in the hall of the ducal
palace was a masterpiece in conception, but the gay cavaliers and
ladies, the Duke's twenty-second condensation of the "Questa o quella"
ballata, the plotting with Rigoletto and the mocking of Monterone were
all accomplished and done with before Walther knew what was happening.
Then he realized that he was looking upon a tremendous revolving stage,
divided into many exquisite sets. Each set appeared majestically,
established itself, often with an almost indiscernable pause, and then
moved out of view to be replaced by the next.
The second scene was the deserted street outside Rigoletto's cottage.
Rigoletto appeared and disappeared, Gilda and the disguised Duke
flashed through their duets, the orchestra set up the briefest of
fanfares, and the lovely Maria Piavi moved to the center of the stage
to sing Gilda's immortal aria,
"_Caro nome che il me cor...._"
The words electrified Walther to the edge of his seat. Here were the
first naturally spoken words of the opera, the words of Gilda as she
expressed joy at learning the name of her lover. Walther's mother had
sung the haunting words on many an evening as he drifted off to sleep
in his nursery. But he had never heard them phrased so beautifully as
they came now from the lips of Maria Piavi. After the numbing shock of
the first scene, they started the blood throbbing in his temples again.
But they were the last words he understood of the aria.
Using the archaic phrase with superb showmanship to startle her
audience, Maria swung with flawless technique into a contraction of
verse and music that somehow managed to convey the beauty of both in
the few seconds that she held the center of the stage. It was like
passing a star just before you entered hyperspace. You saw it for an
instant, it awed and choked you with its wonder, and then it vanished
into a nothingness that was deeper than night.
There was so much beauty in the fragment that Walther ached to hear the
rest of the aria. But Gilda had been abducted to the Duke's palace, and
the stage had revolved far into Act II before Walther could assimilate
the realization that no more of "Caro Nome" would be heard this
evening, or any evening.
Nothing mattered after this, not even the Duke's half-minute
condensation of "_La donna e mobile_". The stage picked up momentum,
thunder and lightning flashed, the murdered Gilda's body was discovered
by her father in the sack beside the river, the final curtain swooped
down over the grisly horror, the orchestra disappeared, lights flashed
on and Walther found himself being hurried along with the pleased
audience toward the exit, where servo-robots were passing out handbills
and pointing to a theatre across the street.
The entire opera had lasted eleven minutes.
* * * * *
Stunned, his dream crumbling, Walther stood outside the opera house
and watched the crowd disappear into the theatre across the street, or
plunge into passing monorail cars. The wind of the late afternoon was
gone. A light snow was falling; it melted on his cheeks and powdered
the fur collar of his greatcoat. Some of the younger couples didn't
immediately board the monorail. They walked around to the stage exit
and waited, laughing and chattering. Walther joined them.
In a few moments members of the cast began to appear. They waved gaily
at friends in the crowd.
Maria came out in the company of two young men, followed closely by the
peppery, bright-eyed little man whom Walther recognized from the lobby
poster as being Willy Fritsh, the producer. The young couples closed
around them, applauding. Walther shouldered his way toward the center
of the group.
Maria was laughing with excitement. This was the warm, earthy Maria,
not the exquisite, almost aloof, artist Walther had seen on the stage.
She was a full-lipped, gay Italian girl who was enjoying the plaudits
of her friends. She was bundled in a white fur, and her teeth flashed
as she tossed back a rippling comment to one of the young men standing
near Walther.
As they started to move away, Walther stepped forward in sudden
desperation.
"I beg pardon," he said. "Can you wait while I try to ask one question?"
Maria looked startled, and one of her escorts stepped quickly between
her and Walther.
"Whtstywt?" the young man snapped.
Walther flushed at the tone. He wasn't used to being spoken to this
way, certainly not by anyone his own age. His jaw set as he held on to
his self control, and continued thumbing through the Manual.
Then he noticed that Maria was being hurried along by her other escort.
He tried to step around the young man blocking his path.
The young man put out his arm and pushed against Walther's shoulder, as
if to shove him back into the crowd.
Out of the corner of his eye, Walther saw Willy Fritsh hurrying forward
to intervene. But his own reflexes were already in motion. His left
hand flashed up; the back of it struck the young man in the chest.
Walther didn't intend it to be a blow, merely a warning. He even
managed to check it before it landed. But, to his bewilderment, the
young man staggered back, slumped to his knees, gasping for breath.
The other escort, though white-faced with fear, hurled himself at
Walther.
Still trying to maintain a measure of control, Walther merely blocked
the second escort by thrusting out the palm of his hand. The young man
toppled backward, and the whole scene began to take on a never-never
land quality.
Girls screamed in terror; the crowd around Walther scrambled out of his
reach. Maria stared at him wide-eyed, but didn't move.
"I'm terribly sorry," Walther blurted.
There was a shrill whistle, a drumbeat of running feet on the cold
sidewalk. Walther moved forward to help the young men to their feet.
They shrank away from him, and then he was surrounded by three armed
police officers, shouting a gibberish of commands.
Finally, Willy Fritsh made himself heard. He pointed to Walther's
manual, and spoke a few patient words of explanation. When one of the
officers still seemed unsatisfied, Willy turned to Walther with a
twinkle in his eyes:
"They want to know if you are a professional pugilist?"
Walther felt immeasureably relieved at hearing these naturally spoken
words.
"Good Lord, no!" he gasped.
He took out his entry permits, his identification certificate and his
letters of credit, impressively drawn up on the stationery of the
Inter-Galactic Exchange Union on Deneb II.
When the doubting officer saw the amount of the credits, his hands
shook and he handed the papers back to Walther as if they were state
documents. The officers helped the two young men to their feet,
admonished them sharply, tipped their hats to Walther and hurried back
to their posts.
Willy regarded Walther quizzically.
"Well, young man, you seem to have very persuasive ways!"
At home, it had been easy for Walther to slip from English to German.
He did it now in the stress of the moment.
"Ich kann Ihnen nicht sagen wie leid es mir tut--"
He was in the middle of his apology before he realized he was talking
German. He broke off in confusion. Willy's pink cheeks crinkled with
amusement.
"Ist schon gut. Ich spreche auch das 'alte' Deutsch."
Willy went on to explain:
"As a young man I translated many of the German masters into our modern
happy time presentations. Now, what is it you wanted to ask Miss Maria?"
Walther addressed his question to Willy, but he looked at Maria as he
spoke:
"I ... I wanted to ask if she would ever consider singing Rigoletto in
its original form. I would be happy to pay all expenses...."
"I'm sure you would," Willy said drily. "But Miss Maria sings only the
pure happy time essence of Rigoletto. Not for more than a century has
Verdi's original version been sung on Earth."
Maria looked puzzled during the interchange. Willy translated for her,
and she nodded in vigorous endorsement of his words. There was a titter
of laughter from the young couples who had crowded around them again.
Walther drew himself very erect.
"Thank you," he said.
He turned on his heel and walked into the darkness beyond the stage
exit. He walked blindly into the snow flurries, not caring where his
steps were taking him. But he had not gone two hundred yards before he
realized he was being followed.
* * * * *
Walther stopped and waited.
The footsteps behind him drew closer. A slight shadow bulked out of the
darkness, and Walther heard Willy Fritsh say in German:
"Don't be alarmed, young man."
Willy came up and linked his arm through Walther's.
"Keep on walking--It's a cold night."
The chill air rattled in Willy's throat as he panted from the pace of
overtaking Walther. When he caught his breath, he asked:
"What sort of world do you come from? It's quite amazing that someone
from the Andromeda galaxy should ask for the original Rigoletto!"
Walther told the old producer something of his home and family. Willy
questioned him closely on several points, and finally seemed satisfied.
"When they come from the stars," he murmured.
"I beg your pardon?"
"It is nothing--just the title of an old classic."
At the next corner, Willy stopped. "I leave you here."
He stepped closer to Walther and lowered his voice, even though there
was nothing around them but darkness and drifting snow.
"Would you care to sample a bit of Bohemia, my boy?"
"Well--I guess so," Walther answered doubtfully.
"Tomorrow evening then, at eight. 1400 Avenue B, apartment 21. Can you
remember that?"
"1400 Avenue B, apartment 21."
"I must emphasize the need for discretion on your part. There will be
important people present."
"Why do you trust me?" Walther challenged.
"Because I am an old fool," chuckled Willy Fritsh.
The chuckle emboldened Walther to ask one more question:
"Will Maria be there?"
"Now you are a fool!"
Willy took a step away, then returned, flicked on his cigarette lighter
and studied Walther thoughtfully.
"Or maybe not," he murmured. "Maybe not. Perhaps Maria could be there,
this once...."
He snapped out the lighter.
With another chuckle, Willy disappeared into the darkness.
1400 Avenue B, apartment 21. Eight o'clock tomorrow evening. The
directions whirled all night through Walther's fitful sleep. They
intermingled with a strange company of servo-robots, unintelligible
phrases, the dry chuckle of Willy Fritsh and the haunting voice of
Maria Piavi, beginning an aria she would never finish.
The next day, Walther determined to find out how the cult of brevity
had changed other fields of Earth's culture. He went first to the
library, where foreboding hardened into bitter reality. Classic after
classic was cut to its essence. Hamlet was reduced to a total reading
time of seven minutes. But the old librarian seemed embarrassed about
this.
By mutual reference to the Manual, she managed to convey to him that a
new edition would be out soon, and that it would be edited down to five
minutes reading time. Did he want to sign up for a copy?
Walther gave her a stricken look, and silently shook his head.
Puzzled, she led him to the other classics on his list. Each was a new
blow. "Great Expectations" was cut to twenty pages, all of Thoreau to
one thin pamphlet, Henry James to a pocket-size digest of less than ten
pages; "Leaves of Grass" to a few lines of verse.
Walther's sense of loss became more than personal. He saw uncounted
generations of boys who would never know Whitman, who might never have
time for the open road in the Spring, the sweet springtime of life. The
road and the poem, they were part of each other. Without one, the other
could not live.
The fire of Walther's dream flamed up fiercely within him. There was
yet time for beauty in Andromeda. Time for quiet and thinking and true
leisure. Somehow, he must rescue the treasures of the ages from the
tomb of Earth and let them live again, three-quarters of a million
light years away.
He beckoned to the old librarian, and laboriously communicated his
question:
"The originals of these classics--where are they?"
She frowned in bewilderment. He pointed to the proper words again, and
gestured with his hands to indicate a large book.
A smile of understanding replaced her frown. She consulted a larger
edition of his own Manual, and wrote:
Digester's Vaults--lower six levels.
He wrote back:
Can I go down there?
After some delay, she encoded the answer:
Only authorized happy time Digesters are permitted in the vaults.
Walther thanked her glumly. His spirits were so depressed that not even
the digested version of the Bible shocked him too greatly. The Old
Testament amounted to eleven pages, in rather large type; the Gospel of
St. Mark was three paragraphs; the Acts of the Apostles spanned less
than half a page.
Walther left the library, and the icy wind roused him from depression.
It lashed him to anger, to a desperate, unreasoning anger that drove
him to find, somewhere on Earth, an ember of the old culture. Somewhere
he had to find such an ember and bring it back to Neustadt, where it
would flame again.
He managed to get directions to the Vienna stratowaycar. Surely in
Vienna he would find some trace of the spirit left by Mozart and Haydn,
Beethoven, Schubert and Strauss.
Ten minutes later, when he left the stratoway in the Platz terminal
near the Vienna Ring, his heart beat a little faster. This was indeed
the old Vienna, as he had envisaged it from the few pictures he had
seen and the many stories he had been told. The buildings on the Ring
were in good repair, and not substantially altered. There was the Burg
Theatre, the Art and History Museum, the buttressed facade of the
ancient Opera House, the soaring twin spires of the Votive Church. It
was like seeing an old woodcut come to life.
But, for Walther, that was all that came to life in Vienna. The Burg
Theatre was currently presenting Faust, in what was billed as a
brilliant new production scaled down to seventeen minutes. Walther
sadly recalled Goethe's prophetic line: _Mein Lied ertont der unbekaten
Menge_.... My song sounds to the unknown multitude.
Wandering outside the city itself, into the footpaths of the
Wienerwald, Walther tried to lose himself among the gentle slopes and
the old trees that cut latticework into the sky. He came suddenly upon
the village of Tullnerzing, where, from a tiny sidewalk cafe, music of
a stringed ensemble came in short, quick bursts. It was scherzo speeded
up a hundredfold, with not three but an infinite number of quarter
notes blurred into what sounded like a single beat.
These were the Vienna woods! How could he ever tell his mother and
father? Heartsick, he returned to the Platz and found the Berlin
stratoway.
In Berlin, his bitterness grew. He had known the Unter den Linden must
have changed through the centuries, but he was not prepared for such
a pace of life, such a frenzy of leisure. Better not to have left
Andromeda. Better always to have lived with a dream.
The sight of two elderly burghers drinking beer reminded him of his
own great grandfather, and gave him a heartening twinge of nostalgia.
But as he stepped close to their table, he saw that as they sipped
from their miniature steins the fingers of their free hands beat out a
rhythmic accompaniment to the convolutions of an adagio team imaged on
the table-top television screen.
The final irony came to him when he read the lines of Schiller, carved
over the entrance to a museum near the Brandenburg Gate. Because
they were cut deep into the old stone, they could not be erased or
condensed. They were there to give their ironic message to a world that
could no longer read them:
Only through the morning gateway of the beautiful did you enter the
land of knowledge.
And beneath them was Schiller's immortal warning to the artist:
_Der Menschheit Wurde ist in eure Hand gegeben_,
_Bewahret sie...._
Walther copied the entire passage on the back of his Manual. This,
at least, he could take back with him. These words he could preserve
for the artists who would someday create their works of beauty on the
frontier of Andromeda. As he copied them, Walther felt that the words
were also a personal message from Schiller to himself:
_The dignity of Mankind is placed in your hands_,
_Preserve it!_
_Whether it sinks or rises depends on you._
_The holy spell of poetry_
_Serves a wise world order;_
_May it guide man to that great sea_
_Where harmony prevails._
The words sustained Walther's spirits until he left the stratoway in
Paris and went to the Louvre. He had told himself that by this time
nothing could shock him, that he could take any blow. But the Louvre
was a new shock all over again.
Translating a title with the help of his Manual and the servo-robot
guide, Walther found that the thin, wavering line, about two inches
long, against a background of misty blue, was the Mona Lisa.
The servo-robot explained, after much searching among its tapes for
words:
"This is the spirit of the famous Mona Lisa smile. The Happy Time
artist has cleverly removed all non-essential detail so that you can
get the meaning of the picture in the minimum amount of time."
Walther studied the thin, wavering line. This, then, was Da Vinci's
eternal enigma of womanhood. Perhaps it explained why he felt there
were two Marias. Could there be one whole woman in a culture of
fragmented lives?
The portraits of Holbein were reduced to a few sprinkles of geometric
designs shot through with a single brilliant color. The nudes of
Watteau, Rubens and Velazquez were little more than shadow curves.
In the east wing of the Louvre, the servo-robot pointed to a series of
larger paintings. Each of these, Walther learned, summarized the entire
life work of a single artist. Here it was possible to see all of Titian
or Michaelangelo or Van Gogh on one simplified canvas.
Where were the originals of these classics? In the cultural vaults at
Uniport, the servo-robot explained. Only authorized Happy Time artists
could work with them.
Afterwards, Walther was never quite certain what happened to the
rest of his day. Distraught, he wandered around the Earth, changing
from stratoway to stratoway, scarcely paying any heed to his next
destination. Rome, Athens, Moscow, Jerusalem. Everywhere the pace of
leisure was the same. Capetown, New Delhi, Tibet, Tokyo, San Francisco.
Everywhere he saw something that crumbled his dream a little more: The
Buddhist monk pausing for ten seconds of meditation while he counted
his beads, not one by one but in groups of twenty; the World Government
Chamber where the Senator from the United States filibustered a
proposal to death by speaking for the unprecedented period of four
minutes; the cafe near the school where teenage boys and girls,
immense numbers of them, danced, snapped their fingers and shrieked
ecstatically as the latest popular record exploded in a wild three-note
burst of sound.
It was seven o'clock in the evening before Walther became aware of the
time. He was half the Earth and just one hour away from his meeting
with Willy Fritsh.
1400 Avenue B, apartment 21.
A bit of Bohemia, Willy had promised him. The words disturbed Walther.
He had been disappointed so often in his twenty-four hours on Earth
that he didn't feel like bracing himself for another let-down. Nor did
he feel in the mood for a gay evening, if that was what Willy had meant.
Would Maria be there?
Walther shook his head angrily. He was indeed a fool if he expected
anything after this day.
* * * * *
1400 Avenue B was only a few moments by monorail from the Hotel Altair.
A gentle-faced woman who reminded Walther of his own mother answered
his knock on the door of Apartment 21.
"Kdftc?" she inquired politely.
Walther stared at her. Was this all a cruel joke played by Willy
Fritsh? Certainly this elderly woman, this quiet building, contained no
Bohemia to be spoken of with discretion.
"Excuse me," he muttered, not even bothering to consult his Manual. He
bowed and backed away. "I'm afraid I've made a mistake--"
She stayed him with a small gesture of her delicate fingers. Glancing
swiftly up and down the hall, she beckoned him inside. When the door
was closed, she smiled a bright welcome, and spoke in the old tongue:
"You're the young man from Andromeda!"
Walther felt the tension inside him beginning to relax. He nodded, and
she took his arm.
"Willy told us--we've been expecting you."
She led him from the small foyer into a large, tastefully furnished
living room. Walther glanced around uncertainly, but his first
impression proved correct. There was no one else here.
The woman urged him forward with a light touch of her fingertips.
"We must be so careful," she murmured.
She guided him through the living room, past the kitchen and one
bedroom, and then opened the door of what appeared to be the entrance
to a second bedroom.
This room was unexpectedly large, and contained many people. They were
talking with great animation, but hushed abruptly as he entered.
"The young man from Andromeda," his hostess announced.
The dry voice of Willy Fritsh came through the haze of cigarette smoke.
"Over here, boy! Come and sit down!"
He saw Willy and Maria sitting on a long cushion against the far wall.
They moved over to make room for him. Maria smiled rather hesitantly.
He sensed she was very ill at ease.
"I'll introduce you around later," said Willy. "Everybody's too keyed
up right now. We've just had an unexpected surprise--really quite
startling."
The conversation had bubbled up again, and there was an electric
feeling of excitement in the air. Everyone was trying to talk at the
same time. Cheeks were flushed, eyes sparkled.
While everyone was talking to those nearest, the most constantly
recurring focal point of attention was the thin, balding man seated
just across the room from Walther, on the arm of the sofa. He was
riffling the pages of a pocket-size notebook and smiling with
self-conscious pride.
Willy nodded toward the man.
"There's the gentleman who furnished our surprise--He brought shorthand
notes on an entire chapter from Don Quixote!"
After the day he had just been through, Walther could appreciate this.
He asked wonderingly,
"Where did he get them?"
"He's a Happy Time Digester."
Walther studied the little man. So this was one of the comparative few
on Earth who could get into the deep vaults of the Uniport library!
What wonders he must have explored! What beauty and adventure, what
mind-stretching thoughts he must encounter in those underground
catacombs. How deep into the past he could explore, how far into the
future! Why, he could range the universe faster than the warp drive,
out even beyond the Andromeda galaxy!
Willy cut into his thoughts.
"He's going to read the entire chapter!"
Walther turned to Maria to see if she shared his excitement. It was the
aloof, controlled Maria who smiled faintly at him. It was obvious she
had come against her will, and was trying to be gracious about it.
A middle-aged couple arrived.
"Dr. and Mrs. Althuss," Willy whispered. "He's the famous heart
surgeon...."
The next arrival was a distinguished looking man whose fingers shook
with nervousness.
"That's the World Government alternate delegate from England," Willy
whispered again. "It wouldn't do his reputation any good for word to
get out that he spent an evening in this Bohemian crowd...."
Their hostess moved to the center of the room, raised her hand and
announced:
"We're all here now. Please go ahead, Lorne."
The room quieted instantly. The thin little man proudly began in the
old English:
"Don Cervante at the Castle...."
His reading was painfully slow, and he stumbled over the pronunciation
of many words. The people in the room watched him so intensely, with
such absolute concentration, that they gave the impression of reading
his lips rather than listening to his words. Frequently, he would have
to translate a word or phrase into the new language, and there would
be nods of understanding and relief.
Willy's bright blue eyes sparkled more brightly than ever. He ran his
fingers constantly through his thin bristle of white hair. The elderly
woman on the sofa beside the Digester was so flushed and breathing so
rapidly that Walther feared she was on the verge of a stroke. Even the
urbane heart surgeon showed the emotional impact of this experience.
His long, tapered fingers were clenched together, and he ran his under
lip constantly over the edge of his greying mustache.
Maria seemed the only one in the room who was not affected by the
reading. Only a slight tightening of her lips marred her careful
composure.
Soon Walther lost himself in the tingling excitement of the room,
and he forgot about watching the others. Word by word, sentence by
sentence, the Digester led them along with Don Cervante.
The reading, with its many pauses for translation, took almost two
hours. When it was over, everyone was emotionally and physically
exhausted. The little Digester was so pale he looked ill; his high
forehead dripped with perspiration.
Walther drew a long breath, and brought himself reluctantly back to
reality.
Willy asked quietly:
"What do you think of our intellectual underworld?"
An outbreak of almost hysterical conversation made it useless for
Walther to answer. Maria, with a look of reproach at Willy, moved
across the room to speak to their hostess. Willy lit one of his cigars
and leaned closer to Walther. There was a gleam of amusement in his
twinkling blue eyes.
"You look more worn out than Don Cervante!" he chuckled.
The contrast between this evening and the disillusionment of the day
made it hard for Walther to put his gratitude into words.
"I can't thank you enough--" he began.
"Don't try," said Willy. "I may have had my own devious reasons for
inviting you." He glanced toward Maria, who was making an effort at
polite conversation with the hostess. "I'm afraid our young diva isn't
an ardent admirer of the unexpurgated Don Quixote."
There were many questions Walther wanted to ask about Maria, but he
tactfully inquired, instead:
"How often does this group meet?"
"Whenever there is something to share--a chapter of literature--a
copy of an old painting--a recording. It all depends on what our few
Digester friends can manage--They don't have an easy time of it, you
know."
"Is it difficult for them to take things out of the vaults?"
"Difficult ... and dangerous," Willy answered grimly.
"But why...?"
"For reasons that make good sense, officially at least. A culture
founded on brevity cannot be expected to encourage its own demise
through the acts of its civil servants! Think what could happen: A
total work of art, whatever its form, takes time to appreciate! But
if people spend too long at an opera, the legitimate theatre or the
television industry would be slighted! If they paused too long in
contemplation of a painting, newspapers might not be purchased! If they
dawdled over the old-style newspaper, the digest magazines, the popular
recordings, the minute movies, the spectator sports--the thousand and
one forms of mass recreation offered the public--each in turn would
suffer from unrestrained competition!"
"It's inconceivable," Walther protested, "that entertainment interests
could be strong enough to shape a culture! Surely the productive basis
of Earth's economy...."
Willy snorted.
"My boy, work as such may still be important in Andromeda, but how
could it possibly be so here on Earth? Generations ago, automation,
the control of the atom, the harnessing of the sun's energy--all
combined with many other factors to make work a negligible part of
Man's existence! Thus, with four-fifths of his waking hours devoted
to leisure-time pursuits, the balance of power shifted inevitably to
the purveyors of mass entertainment. Great monopolies, operating under
the Happy Time, Ltd. cartel, seized upon the digest trend in the old
culture and made brevity the basis of the new order. The briefer you
make a piece of entertainment, the more pieces you can sell the public
in a given number of leisure hours! It's just good business," Willy
concluded drily.
Walther was silent a moment, trying to frame this picture in his
thoughts. But there were so many missing elements.
"Your artists and writers," he demanded, "all your creative
people--don't they have anything to say about it?"
"Damn little. You see, the successful artist--whatever his field--is
well paid by his particular monopoly. Besides, he's been trained in
the new form! I doubt if Maria has ever seen the original score of an
opera--let alone tried to sing an entire aria!"
Willy took a glass of wine from a tray offered by the hostess's
servo-robot. He motioned to Walther to help himself, but Walther shook
his head. Another question was troubling him.
"Why do the monopolies even bother with Digesters and the classics? Why
not let modern artists create in the new form?"
Willy's voice grew hard.
"Because," he snapped, "there have been no creative artists on Earth
for over a century! Why create when your creation is only fed into the
maw of the Digesters? That which is not wanted dies--in a culture as
well as in the human body! That--my young friend from Andromeda--is the
bitter tragedy of it all!"
Maria rejoined them, and whispered something to Willy. The old producer
sighed and turned to Walther.
"Maria would like to leave now. Will you take her back to our hotel?
There are some people here I must see...."
"Of course!"
Yet, in spite of his eagerness to get better acquainted with Maria,
Walther was reluctant to leave. There was so much more he wanted to
ask, to learn. And deep beneath the surface of his thoughts a bold idea
was beginning to form.
As if reading his mind, Willy said:
"We have no performance tomorrow afternoon. Come and see me at our
hotel--we'll talk further! Meanwhile--" Willy's blue eyes sparkled
again, "Meanwhile, for the young, the evening is still young. It should
be an interesting challenge!"
* * * * *
Maria said nothing until they had left the apartment building and
started across the street to the monorail station. Then she stopped,
drew a long breath of the wintry air, and shook her head.
"Whtrblvng!" she exclaimed.
She smiled at his puzzled expression and tucked her arm through his.
When they were inside the station, he handed her his Manual. She
flipped through the pages, but could not find the exact translation
of her remark. Finally, she picked out parts of three phrases. Put
together, they read: