Earth Unaware

After a long moment, Ed Wonder opened his eyes again. He said, slowly, “I keep getting the impression that every other sentence is being left out of this conversation. What in the name of Mountain Moving Mohammed are you talking about?”

“The All-Mother. You’re the All-Mother, I’m the All-Mother, that little bird singing out there, it’s the All- Mother. The All-Mother is everything. The All-Mother is life. That’s the way father explains it.”

“You mean, something like Mother Nature?” Ed said with a certain relief.

“Exactly like Mother Nature. The All-Mother is transcendent. We pilgrims on the path to Elysium aren’t so primitive as to believe in a, well, god. Not a personal, individual god. If we must use such terms, and evidently we do, in order to spread our message, then we must use All-Mother as a symbol of all life. Father says that woman was man’s earliest symbol when searching for spiritual values. The Triple Goddess, the White Goddess was all but universal in the first civilizations. Even down into modern times, Mary has almost been deified by Christians. Note that even atheists refer to Mother Nature, rather than Father Nature. Father says that those religions that have degraded women, such as the Moslems, are contemptible and invariably reactionary.”

“Oh,” Ed Wonder said. He knuckled his chin ruefully. “I suppose you people aren’t quite as kooky as I first had figured out.”

Nefertiti Tubber hadn’t heard that. Her face was twisted thoughtfully. “We could probably have that cottage, up next to the laboratory,” she said.

The import of that didn’t get through to him at first. “Laboratory?” he said.

“Ummm, where Doctor Wetzler is working on his cure.”

“Wetzler! You don’t mean…”

“Ummm, Felix Wetzler.”

“You mean Felix Wetzler is up here in this backwoods… that is, in this little community?”

“Of course. They had him working on some sort of pills to give women curly hair, or something. So he gave up in disgust and came here.”

“Felix Wetzler, working up here. Balls of fire, he’s the most famous… What kind of a cure is he working on?”

“For death. We could have the cottage right next to him. It will be finished in a day or two. And…”

Ed Wonder shot quickly to his feet. It had got through to him now. “Look,” he said hurriedly. “Like I told you, I’ve got this important government assignment. I have to see your father.”

She was unhappy, but she stood too. “When will you be back, Ed?”

“Well, I don’t know. You know how it is. The government. I’m working directly under Dwight Hopkins himself. Duty first. All that sort of kookery.” He began edging toward the door.

She followed him. At the door she held up her face again, for his kiss. “Edward, do you know when I fell in love with you?”

“Well, no,” he said hurriedly. “I wouldn’t know when that happened.”

“When I heard them calling you little Ed. You don’t like to be called Little Ed. But they all call you that. They don’t care that you hate it, they don’t even know you do.”

He looked into her. Suddenly everything was different He said, “You never called me that.”

“No.”

He bent down and kissed her again. She didn’t seem to need practice as much as he had thought earlier. He tried again, just to be sure. She hardly needed practice at all.

Ed said, “I’ll be back.”

“Of course.”

He found Ezekiel Joshua Tubber seated at a table in a corner of Dixon’s Bar.

The drive down from Elysium, through Shady and Bearsville, had been accomplished in a state of mental confusion.

But now that he considered it, he had never been in a state other than one of confusion every time he came up against Tubber and his movement. The man had started out seemingly a Bible belt itinerant revivalist, and wound up with an academecian’s degree in political economy from Harvard. His daughter had started off as a simple, slightly plumpish girl in gingham print dress who blushed, and had wound up an ex-strip teaser and only a sort-of-adopted member of the Tubber family. The new religion had started off just one more sect of cranks, and now was revealed to have among its followers Nobel Prize winner Martha Kent, and ultra-top research biochemist Felix Wetzler.

However, he was, beginning to lose his fear of Ezekiel Joshua Tubber. The Lincolnesque prophet—if that were the term—was beginning to take on aspects of reality.

Ed Wonder had brought himself up sharp at that point. Reality, his neck. There was no reality in a situation that embraced the laying on of worldwide hexes, just because an elderly twitch got himself into a tizzy against this or that aspect of modern society, from time to time.

He spotted the Tubber horse and wagon pulled up before a smallish autobar which read simply Dixon’s. Ed Wonder began fumbling in his pockets for a coin for the parking meter; there being an empty place right next to the wagon. However, at this point he saw a cop coming along the street toward him and scowling unbelievingly at each meter in its turn.

When he came abreast of Ed’s Volkshover, Ed said, “What seems to be the matter, Officer?”

The other looked at him unbelievingly. “These here parking meters. Something crazy’s happened.”

Ed Wonder could see it coming, but he couldn’t help saying, “What?”

“There’s no slot for the coin to go in. There’s gotta be a slot. There was a slot yesterday. There’s always been a slot for the coins to go in. This is crazy. You’d think they were hexed, or something.”

“Yeah,” Ed said, wearily. He climbed out of the hovercar and made his way toward Dixon’s.

There was a blast of juke box music emanating from the autobar. Ed Wonder set his shoulder against it, and pushed his way in. For some reason, since the elimination of radio and TV, everybody seemed to have tuned up their juke boxes to the cyclonic point.

Tubber was seated in a corner, a half-full glass of beer before him. In spite of the fact that the place was packed, his table was empty except for himself. He looked up at Ed’s approach and smiled gentle welcome.

“Ah, dear one. Will you share a glass of beer with me?” Ed steeled himself and took a chair. He said bravely, “Sure, I’ll have a glass of beer. What surprises me is that you’re having one. I thought all you reformers were on the blue-nosed side. How come the pilgrims on the path to Elysium aren’t morally opposed to the demon alcohol?”

Tubber chuckled again. At least the old boy seemed to be in a good humor. He raised his voice over the blast of the juke box. “I see you are beginning to pick up some of our symbolic terminology. But why should we be opposed to the blessing of alcohol? It is one of the All-Mother’s earliest gifts to mankind. So far back as we can trace, in history and prehistory, man was aware of alcoholic beverages and enjoyed them.” He held up his glass of beer. “We have written records of the brewing of beer going back some 5000 years B.C in Mesopotamia. By the way, were you aware of the fact that when the Bible mentions wine, in its earlier books, it is referring to barley wine, which is, of course, actually beer. Beer is a much older beverage than wine.”

“No, I didn’t know it,” Ed said. He dialed himself a Manhattan, feeling a need for some more substantial backing than beer would promote. “But most religions point out that alcohol can be a disaster. The Mohammedans don’t allow it at all.”

Tubber shrugged pleasantly, after darting a disapproving glance over at the juke box which was now rendering a Rock’n’Swing version of Silent Night. He all but yelled to get his voice above the alleged music. “Anything can be a disaster if overdone. You can drink enough water to kill yourself. What in the name of the All-Mother is that piece they’re playing? It seems, very vaguely, to be familiar.”

Ed told him.

Tubber looked disbelief. “That’s Stille Nacht ? Dear one, you are jesting.”

Ed figured they’d gone through enough preliminary pleasantries. He said, “Look here, Mr. Tubber…”

Tubber bent an eye on him.

“…Uh, that is, Ezekiel. I’ve been assigned to contact you and try to come to some understanding on these developments of the past couple of weeks. I don’t suppose there’s any need of telling you that the world is going to pot by the minute. There are riots going on in half of the larger cities of the world. People are going batty for lack of