The Marching Morons
gales roaring yards overhead, and tried to put two and two together.
It was like old times, he thought--like a coup in real estate where
you had the competition by the throat, like a 50-per cent rent boost
when you knew damned well there was no place for the tenants to move,
like smiling when you read over the breakfast orange juice that the
city council had decided to build a school on the ground you had
acquired by a deal with the city council. And it was simple. He would
just sell tundra building lots to eagerly suicidal lemmings, and that
was absolutely all there was to solving the Problem that had these
double-domes spinning.
They'd have to work out most of the details, naturally, but what the
hell, that was what subordinates were for. He'd need specialists in
advertising, engineering, communications--did they know anything about
hypnotism? That might be helpful. If not, there'd have to be a lot of
bribery done, but he'd make sure--damned sure--there were unlimited
funds.
Just selling building lots to lemmings....
He wished, as he fell asleep, that poor Verna could have been in on
this. It was his biggest, most stupendous deal. Verna--that sharp
shyster Sam Immerman must have swindled her....
* * * * *
It began the next day with people coming to visit him. He knew the
approach. They merely wanted to be helpful to their illustrious visitor
from the past and would he help fill them in about his era, which
unfortunately was somewhat obscure historically, and what did he think
could be done about the Problem? He told them he was too old to be
roped any more, and they wouldn't get any information out of him until
he got a letter of intent from at least the Polar President, and a
session of the Polar Congress empowered to make him dictator.
He got the letter and the session. He presented his program, was asked
whether his conscience didn't revolt at its callousness, explained
succinctly that a deal was a deal and anybody who wasn't smart enough
to protect himself didn't deserve protection--"Caveat emptor," he threw
in for scholarship, and had to translate it to "Let the buyer beware."
He didn't, he stated, give a damn about either the morons or their
intelligent slaves; he'd told them his price and that was all he was
interested in.
Would they meet it or wouldn't they?
The Polar President offered to resign in his favor, with certain
temporary emergency powers that the Polar Congress would vote him if
he thought them necessary. Barlow demanded the title of World Dictator,
complete control of world finances, salary to be decided by himself,
and the publicity campaign and historical writeup to begin at once.
"As for the emergency powers," he added, "they are neither to be
temporary nor limited."
Somebody wanted the floor to discuss the matter, with the declared hope
that perhaps Barlow would modify his demands.
"You've got the proposition," Barlow said. "I'm not knocking off even
ten per cent."
"But what if the Congress refuses, sir?" the President asked.
"Then you can stay up here at the Pole and try to work it out
yourselves. I'll get what I want from the morons. A shrewd operator
like me doesn't have to compromise; I haven't got a single competitor
in this whole cockeyed moronic era."
Congress waived debate and voted by show of hands. Barlow won
unanimously.
"You don't know how close you came to losing me," he said in his first
official address to the joint Houses. "I'm not the boy to haggle;
either I get what I ask or I go elsewhere. The first thing I want is
to see designs for a new palace for me--nothing _un_ostentatious,
either--and your best painters and sculptors to start working on my
portraits and statues. Meanwhile, I'll get my staff together."
He dismissed the Polar President and the Polar Congress, telling them
that he'd let them know when the next meeting would be.
A week later, the program started with North America the first target.
Mrs. Garvy was resting after dinner before the ordeal of turning on
the dishwasher. The TV, of course, was on and it said: "Oooh!"--long,
shuddery and ecstatic, the cue for the _Parfum Assault Criminale_ spot
commercial. "Girls," said the announcer hoarsely, "do you want your
man? It's easy to get him--easy as a trip to Venus."
"Huh?" said Mrs. Garvy.
"Wassamatter?" snorted her husband, starting out of a doze.
"Ja hear that?"
"Wha'?"
"He said 'easy like a trip to Venus.'"
"So?"
"Well, I thought ya couldn't get to Venus. I thought they just had that
one rocket thing that crashed on the Moon."
"Aah, women don't keep up with the news," said Garvy righteously,
subsiding again.
"Oh," said his wife uncertainly.
And the next day, on _Henry's Other Mistress_, there was a new
character who had just breezed in: Buzz Rentshaw, Master Rocket Pilot
of the Venus run. On _Henry's Other Mistress_, "the broadcast drama
about you and your neighbors, _folksy_ people, _ordinary_ people,
_real_ people"! Mrs. Garvy listened with amazement over a cooling cup
of coffee as Buzz made hay of her hazy convictions.
MONA: Darling, it's so good to see you again!
BUZZ: You don't know how I've missed you on that dreary Venus run.
SOUND: _Venetian blind run down, key turned in door lock._
MONA: Was it _very_ dull, dearest?
BUZZ: Let's not talk about my humdrum job, darling. Let's talk about us.
SOUND: _Creaking bed._
Well, the program was back to normal at last. That evening Mrs. Garvy
tried to ask again whether her husband was sure about those rockets,
but he was dozing right through _Take It and Stick It_, so she watched
the screen and forgot the puzzle.
She was still rocking with laughter at the gag line, "Would you buy it
for a quarter?" when the commercial went on for the detergent powder
she always faithfully loaded her dishwasher with on the first of every
month.
* * * * *
The announcer displayed mountains of suds from a tiny piece of the
stuff and coyly added: "Of course, Cleano don't lay around for you to
pick up like the soap root on Venus, but it's pretty cheap and it's
almost pretty near just as good. So for us plain folks who ain't lucky
enough to live up there on Venus, Cleano is the real cleaning stuff!"
Then the chorus went into their "Cleano-is-the-stuff" jingle, but Mrs.
Garvy didn't hear it. She was a stubborn woman, but it occurred to her
that she was very sick indeed. She didn't want to worry her husband.
The next day she quietly made an appointment with her family freud.
In the waiting room she picked up a fresh new copy of _Readers Pablum_
and put it down with a faint palpitation. The lead article, according
to the table of contents on the cover, was titled "The Most Memorable
Venusian I Ever Met."
"The freud will see you now," said the nurse, and Mrs. Garvy tottered
into his office.
His traditional glasses and whiskers were reassuring. She choked out
the ritual: "Freud, forgive me, for I have neuroses."
He chanted the antiphonal: "Tut, my dear girl, what seems to be the
trouble?"
"I got like a hole in the head," she quavered. "I seem to forget all
kinds of things. Things like everybody seems to know and I don't."
"Well, that happens to everybody occasionally, my dear. I suggest a
vacation on Venus."
The freud stared, open-mouthed, at the empty chair. His nurse came in
and demanded, "Hey, you see how she scrammed? What was the matter with
_her_?"
He took off his glasses and whiskers meditatively. "You can search
me. I told her she should maybe try a vacation on Venus." A momentary
bafflement came into his face and he dug through his desk drawers
until he found a copy of the four-color, profusely illustrated journal
of his profession. It had come that morning and he had lip-read it,
though looking mostly at the pictures. He leafed through to the article
_Advantages of the Planet Venus in Rest Cures_.
"It's right there," he said.
The nurse looked. "It sure is," she agreed. "Why shouldn't it be?"
"The trouble with these here neurotics," decided the freud, "is that
they all the time got to fight reality. Show in the next twitch."
He put on his glasses and whiskers again and forgot Mrs. Garvy and her
strange behavior.
"Freud, forgive me, for I have neuroses."
"Tut, my dear girl, what seems to be the trouble?"
* * * * *
Like many cures of mental disorders, Mrs. Garvy's was achieved largely
by self-treatment. She disciplined herself sternly out of the crazy
notion that there had been only one rocket ship and that one a failure.
She could join without wincing, eventually, in any conversation on the
desirability of Venus as a place to retire, on its fabulous floral
profusion. Finally she went to Venus.
All her friends were trying to book passage with the Evening Star
Travel and Real Estate Corporation, but naturally the demand was
crushing. She considered herself lucky to get a seat at last for the
two-week summer cruise. The space ship took off from a place called
Los Alamos, New Mexico. It looked just like all the spaceships on
television and in the picture magazines, but was more comfortable than
you would expect.
Mrs. Garvy was delighted with the fifty or so fellow-passengers
assembled before takeoff. They were from all over the country and
she had a distinct impression that they were on the brainy side. The
captain, a tall, hawk-faced, impressive fellow named Ryan-Something
or other, welcomed them aboard and trusted that their trip would be a
memorable one. He regretted that there would be nothing to see because,
"due to the meteorite season," the ports would be dogged down. It was
disappointing, yet reassuring that the line was taking no chances.
There was the expected momentary discomfort at takeoff and then two
monotonous days of droning travel through space to be whiled away in
the lounge at cards or craps. The landing was a routine bump and the
voyagers were issued tablets to swallow to immunize them against any
minor ailments. When the tablets took effect, the lock was opened and
Venus was theirs.
It looked much like a tropical island on Earth, except for a blanket
of cloud overhead. But it had a heady, other-worldly quality that was
intoxicating and glamorous.
The ten days of the vacation were suffused with a hazy magic. The soap
root, as advertised, was free and sudsy. The fruits, mostly tropical
varieties transplanted from Earth, were delightful. The simple shelters
provided by the travel company were more than adequate for the balmy
days and nights.
It was with sincere regret that the voyagers filed again into the ship,
and swallowed more tablets doled out to counteract and sterilize any
Venus illnesses they might unwittingly communicate to Earth.
* * * * *
Vacationing was one thing. Power politics was another.
At the Pole, a small man was in a soundproof room, his face deathly
pale and his body limp in a straight chair.
In the American Senate Chamber, Senator Hull-Mendoza (Synd., N. Cal.)
was saying: "Mr. President and gentlemen, I would be remiss in my duty
as a legislature if'n I didn't bring to the attention of the au-gust
body I see here a perilous situation which is fraught with peril.
As is well known to members of this au-gust body, the perfection of
space flight has brought with it a situation I can only describe
as fraught with peril. Mr. President and gentlemen, now that swift
American rockets now traverse the trackless void of space between this
planet and our nearest planetarial neighbor in space--and, gentlemen, I
refer to Venus, the star of dawn, the brightest jewel in fair Vulcan's
diadome--now, I say, I want to inquire what steps are being taken