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the
mighty
dead
_by William Campbell Gault_
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_What would it be like to live in a world which has conquered the
near planets but abolished all literature? Bill Gault gives us a
look at a world like this--in a not too distant future which finds
all our pressure groups united to rule the roost._
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On its surface the choice was an easy one--Doak Parker's
career in Washington against a highly suspect country girl
he had just met.
Doak Parker was thinking of June, when the light flashed. He was
thinking of the two months' campaign and the very probable probability
of his knocking her off this week-end. It was going to be a conquest
to rank among his best. It was going to be....
The buzzer buzzed, the light flashed and the image of Ryder appeared
on his small desk-screen. Ryder said, "Come in, Doak. A little job for
the week-end."
_No_, Doak thought, _no, no, no! Not this week-end. Not this
particular triumphant looming week-end. No!_ He said, "Be right
there, Chief."
Ryder was sitting behind his desk when Doak entered. Ryder was a man
of about sixty, with a lined, weary face and a straggling mustache. He
nodded at the chair across the desk from him.
Ryder depressed a button on his desk and the screen beyond him began
to glow. Ryder said, "An electronic transcript of a phone call I
received this morning from former Senator Elmer Arnold. You know who
he is, I guess, Doak."
"Author of the Arnold Law?" Doak smiled. "Who doesn't?"
Then the image of former Senator Arnold came on the screen. He didn't
look any more than a hundred and ten years old, a withered and thin
lipped man with a complexion like ashes. He began to talk.
"Ryder, I guess you know I'm no scatterbrain and I guess you know I'm
not one to cry wolf--but there's something damned funny going on in
the old Fisher place on the Range Road. You better send a man down
here, and I mean quick. You have him contact me."
The image faded, the rasping voice ceased. Doak sighed and looked at
his nails.
"Senile, you're thinking?" Ryder said quietly.
"I wasn't thinking at all, Chief," Doak said.
"Not even about that new one, that June?" the Chief asked, smiling.
Doak looked up, startled. "Is there no privacy? Are there no
sanctuaries?"
"Not from Security," Ryder said. "But don't be disturbed. There's no
law against _that_ yet excepting some of the old ones--and who has
time for the old ones?"
"As long as we're being frank," Doak said, "he mentioned the old
Fisher place and a road as though you should know them. Friends of
yours?"
"Friends? That's our home town. Senator Arnold was very instrumental
in my Department climb." Ryder paused. "And no crackpot."
"I'll buy that," Doak agreed. "He was the man who first saw the power
in combining pressure groups. He surely made some strange bedfellows."
"Any lobbyist would be a strange bedfellow, I've been told," the Chief
answered. "The Arnold Law has saved us one hell of a lot of work,
Doak, and saved the Department money."
"Yes, sir," Doak said. "I'm to understand this couldn't be put off
until Monday?"
Ryder nodded.
"And no other Security Officer would do?"
"No other."
Doak rose. "Anything else--_sir_?"
Ryder smiled. "Just one. As a guess, what do you think it is, in the
old Fisher place, on the Range Road?"
"Readers," Doak answered, "or why would the--uh, Mr. Arnold be so
worried."
Ryder chuckled. "I can see them now, in the curtained room, huddling
over an old railroad timetable. I think your guess is sound, Doak." He
rose. "And there'll be other week-ends. That girl can wait. She isn't
going to spoil."
"But _I_ might explode," Doak said. "Well, it will be triple-time.
That's some consolation. Enough for a new video set--I need one in the
bathroom."
It was still a half hour to quitting time and Doak went back to his
desk. He sat there, trying to remember the history of Senator Arnold.
It was all on the tape in the Biography Center, he knew, but he didn't
want that much information.
_Subversive_ kicked around in his memory and the phrase "free press."
And then he remembered the Censors. The religious, the political, the
scientific, the capitalist, the communist, the ridiculous and the
absurd.
Arnold had unified the Censors and they had made strange bedfellows.
For where one bit of ink and paper might be anti-Christian, the next
might be anti-anti-Christian and the next anti-anti-anti--ad
absurdium. And sex? Where couldn't one find sex in print, even among
the prissy writers? For wasn't a large part of it boy meets girl? And
they didn't meet to exchange election buttons--that much was certain.
Well, there were the P.T.A. and the N.A.M. and the fine if disguised
hand of the Lenin lovers and the S.P.C.A. who didn't like dogs to play
a sub-human part in the world of letters. All these, fighting each
other, until Senator Arnold came forth.
The Senator had never enjoyed a favorable press and had a habit of
saying things that looked silly, three years later, in print. The
Senator was the new spokesman for the Censors.
And those who loathed sex or Christians or Republicans or Democrats or
the Big Ten or the small snifter were unified under this noble man who
read with his lips.
They were for him. And they established the biggest lobby ever to
crawl out of the woodwork in Washington. They had their day.
The printers fought a little but were offered jobs in Hollywood. The
paper manufacturers were promised all the government map-work plus a
new sheaf of picture magazines. The publishers were all rich and ready
to retire anyway.
The writers? They were disorganized because some were rich and some
weren't, the game being what it was, and the difference in viewpoint
between a rich and a non-rich writer makes McCarthy and Malenkov look
like brothers.
_There shall be in that area of the galaxy under American control
no material of a literary or non-literary, educational or
non-educational, pertinent or impertinent nature, which is printed,
written, enscribed, engraved, mimeographed, dupligraphed,
electro-graved, arti-scribed, teleprinted...._
That wasn't the exact wording, but close.
Simple enough--how can there be subversive literature if there is no
literature?
There were still sex, Democrats, Lenin lovers, some religion and two
Republicans (on Venus). There was, of course, no Post Office
Department, nor need for any.
On Connecticut Ave (S.E.) there was a girl named June waiting for a
call from Doak. She had been in a negative frame of mind for two
months, but the week-end ahead had shown promise of bringing matters
to a head and maybe, considering everything, well, what the hell....
Doak looked at the newsscreen over the water cooler and saw,
_Stormy and some rain. Temp. 93. 1730._
A gong sounded.
The other wage-slaves rose with assorted sighs, looking forward to the
week-end. Doak dialed June's number.
His outside screen lighted up and there she was, her hair in curlers
but luscious as a peach. "Hi," she said. And then frowned at the
seriousness of his smile.
"Look, June," he said, "I--I've got to go out of town."
"I'll _bet_," she said.
"So help me, kid, it's...." Well, he couldn't say what it was. "I'll
phone you, though, as soon--"
His screen went blank. He dialed again, and again. The screen stayed
blank.
Ryder came out from his office, his hat on, looking weary. He managed
a smile for Doak. "You'd better get to the cashier before he closes,
if you haven't already."
"Yes, sir," Doak said. "Dubbinville, wasn't it?"
"Dubbinville," Ryder said. "My old Wisconsin home. You'll find it
beautiful this time of the year. You'll love it, Doak."
"Yes, sir," Doak said.
The cashier was just getting ready to close when Doak came to the
window. "Week-end trip," Doak said. "Secret."
"How much?"