The face that faded into the phone screen had a major’s leaves on the shirt collar, but it wasn’t the face of Major Davis.
Ed Wonder said, “Where’s Lenny Davis?”
“Davis isn’t with us any more, sir. He had a breakdown of some sort or other. My name is Wells.”
“Oh, he did, huh? Well, look here Wells, no more breakdowns among you army types, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If there are any breakdowns around here, I’ll have them.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ed tried to remember why he had called Major Davis, and couldn’t. He flicked off the screen. It lit up again immediately to display the face of Colonel Fredric Williams.
The colonel said, “Dwight Hopkins wants to see you immediately, Wonder.”
“Okay,” Ed said. He got to his feet. He wished that Buzzo were here to back him. There were angles to this big executive bit.
At the entry to Project Tubber, Johnson and Stevens, the two security heavies, fell in behind him. Evidently, he was still under guard. It was just as well. He couldn’t have found his way to the Hopkins offices otherwise. He had the vague feeling that this whole commission, or whatever its official name was, had grown by half again during the night. The crush was greater in the corridors, still more equipment was being shoved up and down the halls, and more offices were being filled with desks, files, phones, intercoms and all the other paraphernalia of bureaucracy.
He was admitted immediately to Dwight Hopkins’ presence and found the president’s right hand man winding up a conference with fifteen or twenty assorted efficient-looking types, only several of whom were in uniform. Ed wasn’t introduced and the others filed out with the exception of Professor Braithgale, the one among them all that Ed Wonder had recognized.
Hopkins said, “Sit down, Mr. Wonder. How does Project Tubber go?”
Ed held up his hands, palms upward. “How could it go? We just got started yesterday afternoon. We’re investigating the nature of a curse. Or at least trying to. We’re trying also to get as complete rundown on Tubber as we can, on the off chance that we’ll find some clue as to how he got this power of his.”
Hopkins shifted slightly in his chair, as though what he was about to say didn’t appeal to him. He said, “Your hypothesis, the Tubber hypothesis, is strengthening in its appeal, Mr. Wonder. It occurs to me that one aspect of this crisis might be unknown to you. Did you know that radar was not effected?”
“I wondered about that,” Ed told him.
“But that isn’t what has our technicians rapidly going off their minds. Neither is radio as used in international commerce, shipping, that sort of thing. But above all, neither are educational motion pictures. I spent an hour last night, on the edge of insanity, watching the current cinema idol, Warren Waren, come through perfectly in a travelogue sort of documentary used to promote the teaching of geography in our high schools. He had donated his time. But when we attempted to project one of his regular films.
Dwight Hopkins’ gaze was steady, but there was somehow, behind his eyes, a frantic look.
Ed said, “TV, in the way we use it in telephones, isn’t effected either. The curse is selective, just as in books. Non-fiction isn’t effected, nor even the kind of fiction Tubber likes. What the devil, not even his favorite comic strip is changed. But none of this is news, why’d you bring it up?”
Professor Braithgale spoke up for the first time. “Mr. Wonder, it was one thing considering your hypothesis along with anything, absolutely anything, else. But we are rapidly arriving to the point where your theory is the only one that makes sense. The least sensible of all comes nearest to making sense.”
“What happened to sun spots?” Ed srud.
Hopkins said, “On the face of it, such activity might disrupt radio, but it would hardly be selective. At the remotest, it wouldn’t exercise censorship over our lighter fiction.”
“So you’re beginning to suspect that I’m not as kooky as you first thought.”
The bureaucrat ignored that. He said, “The reason we brought you in, Mr. Wonder, is that we wish to consult you on a new suggestion. It has been proposed that we use telephone lines to pipe TV programs into the homes. A crash program would be started immediately. Within a month or so every home in the United Welfare States of America would have its entertainment again.”
Ed Wonder stood up and leaned on Dwight Hopkins’ desk and looked down into the older man’s face. “You know the answer to that silly idea as well as I do. How would you like to upset the economy of this country by fouling up telephone and telegraph, to go along with TV and radio?”
Hopkins stared at him.
Ed Wonder stared back.
Braithgale coughed. “That’s what we were afraid of. Then you think…”
“Yes, I do. Tubber would lay a hex on your new wired TV as soon as it started up.”
It seemed a stronger Edward Wonder than they had spoken to only the day before. Dwight Hopkins looked at him calculatingly. He said, finally, “Professor, suppose you tell Mr. Wonder the latest developments pertaining to the crisis.”
Ed returned to his chair and sat down.
The tall gray professor’s voice took on its lecture tone. “Soap box orators,” he said.
“What in the devil is a soap box orator?” Ed demanded.
“Possibly a bit before your time. They were already on their way out when radio began nationwide hookups and the programs began to offer consistent entertainment to the masses. We still had a remnant of the soap box orators in the 1930s but short of a few exceptions such as Boston Common and Hyde Park in London, they disappeared by the middle of this century. They are open air speakers who talk to their audiences from improvised stands. In the old days, when large numbers of our people strolled the streets of a pleasant spring or summer evening, these speakers were able to attract and hold their audiences.”
“Well, what did they talk about?” Ed scowled.
“Anything and everything. Some were religious cranks. Some had things to sell such as patent medicine. Some were radicals, Socialists, Communists, I.W.W.S, that sort of thing. This was their opportunity to reach the people with whatever their message might be.”
Ed said, “Well, so what? Let them talk. It’ll give the people something to do, especially until you get the circuses, carnivals and vaudeville going again.”
Braithgale said, “Don’t lay too much store by live entertainment, Wonder. Only a limited number of persons can watch a live performance. Vaudeville becomes meaningless if you are too far from the stage, so does legitimate theatre or a circus. Perhaps it was that which bankrupted Rome. They had to build ever more arenas so that their whole population could crowd into them. They simply couldn’t keep that many shows going.”
“But what’s wrong with these soap box orators?”
Braithgale said, “Mr. Wonder, with the coming of cinema, radio, and finally, capping it all, television, the voice of dissent faded from the land. Minority parties and other malcontents could not afford the high costs of utilizing these media themselves. They were thrown back on distributing leaflets, pamphlets and little magazines or weekly newspapers. And, of course, we know how few people actually read anything necessitating concentrated thought. Even those of us who do read are presented daily with so much material that we are highly selective. In pure self-defense, we must look at the title or headline of the reading material offered us, and make a quick decision. Few in the minority groups have the skills or the resources to present their material in the attractive manner in which the more oppulent publishers do. It boils down to the fact that the beliefs of the dissenters against our affluent society have not been reaching the people.”
It was beginning to get through to Ed Wonder.
Hopkins finished the story. “But now, every night, there are tens of thousands of belligerent amateur orators standing on our street corners, harranging people with nothing else to do but listen, people desperate for something to do.”
“You mean these, ah, soap box orators are organized? They’ve got some kind of definite bug that…”
Hopkins held up a thin hand. “No. No, not yet. But that is just a matter of time. Sooner or later one of them will come up with an idea that appeals to the mob. He’ll attract followers, other street corner harrangers. The
