The Mighty Dead Part 1

The Mighty Dead.

by William Campbell Gault.

_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._

On its surface the choice was an easy one--Doak Parker's career in Was.h.i.+ngton 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 b.u.t.ton 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 d.a.m.ned 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 h.e.l.l 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 s.e.x? Where couldn't one find s.e.x 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 b.u.t.tons--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 s.e.x or Christians or Republicans or Democrats or the Big Ten or the small snifter were unified under this n.o.ble man who read with his lips.

They were for him. And they established the biggest lobby ever to crawl out of the woodwork in Was.h.i.+ngton. 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 s.e.x, 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 h.e.l.l....

Doak looked at the newsscreen over the water cooler and saw, _Stormy and some rain. Temp. 93. 1730._

A gong sounded.