Mack Reynolds - Trample an Empire Down

VIP免费

2024-12-23 0 0 366.7KB 136 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

Scanned by Highroller. Proofed more or less by Highroller.

Chapter 1

Morris Malone was unhappy. His latest attempt to get a job had fallen flat on its face, as always. He had

educated himself to teach history, and while still in school the profession was automated—ultra-mated,

they were beginning to call it these days—out from under him. With the coming of television and Tri-Di,

and of the National Data Banks, the old form of teaching, was passe. No more, a teacher sitting before a

few dozen students in a school classroom.

He didn't deny that the new system was more practical. In the past, the teacher had to address himself to

the average pupil in the class. Those that were slow failed to understand, and those who were bright

were bored. Today, in his own home, the pupil could go as fast or as slowly as he wished, consulting by

phone screen, when necessary, the tutor who had been assigned him in that particular subject. It didn't

apply to some subjects of course, such as laboratory sciences or physical education, but it applied with a

vengeance to history. There were tens of thousands of canned lectures, on every level, and hundreds of

thousands of books, in the National Data Banks teaching section. Only a handful of history teachers held

down jobs, and they were selected by the computers on the basis of their ability quotients.

He sighed and stared out the window of his small suburban house. As far as the eye could see there

were almost identical houses. A somewhat ant-like existence, he thought. But at least it was better than

living in a high-rise apartment house in a pseudo-city.

Morris Malone was in his early thirties and he had never heard of the other, but he strikingly resembled

Henry Fonda at the same age. Right now, he was on the disgruntled side because he couldn't think of

anything he wanted to do that fitted in with his financial situation. He was tired of reading, just recently

having got off his binge of cramming in hopes of getting a job specializing in the Napoleonic Period of

French history. He felt he could recite the whole life story of the Little Corsican. Not that it had done him

any good. The computers had passed him by with great elan.

He could have watched Tri-Di but he hated canned entertainment.

Jack Zieglar, hands in pockets, came sauntering down the street and up the walk. Morris Malone went

over to the door and let him in.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

If Morris Malone resembled Henry Fonda, then Jack Zieglar was the image of Marlon Brando in his

earlier days. Marlon Brando playing one of his easier-going parts. Zieglar took life slow and

philosophically, and a bit drunkenly.

He said, "Cheers, Mo. What spins?"

"Not a damn thing," Malone said, leading the way back to the living room. "What spins with you?" He

slumped down onto the couch.

His friend sank into a chair and said, "I came over to see if you've got enough pseudo-dollars left this

month to spring me a drink or two."

Morris Malone came back to his feet and went over to the autobar, pulling his Universal Credit Card

from an inner pocket.

"Beer?"

"Yeah."

"I'll have one too, I guess." He put the credit card in the bar's payment slot, put his thumb print on the

identification screen and dialed two dark beers. When they came he returned to his guest.

Jack said, "How'd you do with Napoleon?"

"I met my Waterloo."

The identity screen on the door buzzed and Morris looked up. It was his other close buddy, Jed Kleiser.

Morris was too lazy to get up. He touched a button on the phone screen and the door opened.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Jed came in and looked at them. He said, "Who in hell's still got enough credit left to buy beer? It's three

days before the monthly Guaranteed Annual Income payment."

Morris Malone let martyrdom come into his face but he got up again and went over to his autobar and

put his credit card in the slot, his thumbprint on the tiny identification screen and dialed another beer.

A metalic computer voice said, "You have insufficient credit for this order."

Morris stared down at the bar in disgust. "I didn't know I was that broke," he said. He went back to the

couch, where the newcomer had already taken a seat at the far end from where Mo had been sitting.

"Sorry, Jed."

Jed shrugged. He was a tallish type, somewhat gangling, and, though less than handsome, had that

boy-next-door look that an amazing number of women liked. He was roughly the same age as the others.

Jack said, "This is a helluva world for an aspiring alcoholic to live in. The ultra-welfare state, People's

Capitalism. Ha! Guaranteed Annual Income. Just enough not to starve on, but not enough to enjoy

yourself."

Jed said mildly, "It's not so bad. We all three ought to get married. Then we'd have three mopsies also

getting their GAI Share the cost of a house and so forth."

"Yeah," Jack said, without interest. "And then have a couple of kids and they'd both get half a monthly

payment until eighteen. The only trouble is, I'm a satyr and like to play the field. Having only one woman

would send me around the bend."

"People's Capitalism," Morris said, sipping carefully at his beer, since it was going to have to last.

"Actually, what it amounts to is charity for the majority, but the powers that be still control the country,

and the rich get richer but the poor stay about the same. The businessmen, the politicians, the churches, in

short, the Establishment, do fine, but it's tough titty for the rest of us."

"So what can you do about it, Mo?" Jed shrugged.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Out of a clear sky, Morris Malone took the first step. He said sourly, "What this country needs is a

revolution."

The other two took that in.

He said definitely, "The country's gone flat. No more wars, no more depressions, and with ultra-mation

and computerization, practically nobody works. Practically everybody's on Guaranteed Annual Income.

Even the space program has gotten

into a rut, with nothing exciting going on. Practically everybody just sits around taking trank or drinking

beer and watching Tri-Di like a bunch of idiots. The whole country's in a mental slump."

"And?" the other two said in unison.

"We need a revolution, that's what. There hasn't been a revolution in this country for well over two

hundred years. The nation's ripe for it."

Jack said, just for the sake of saying something, "What kind of a revolution?"

Morris looked at him as though the question was foolish. "What'd'ya mean what kind of a revolution?

One that'd wind up with us three on top of the heap. The leaders of revolutions that win always wind up

in the catbird seat. Look at Mussolini, look at Franco, Tito, Chiang Kai-shek, Lenin, Hitler's gang,

Napoleon, even Mao in China. And most of the leaders of the American revolution started off rich to

begin with, but wound up richer."

"Oh, great. Wizard," Jack said, working away at his own beer, though noting sadly that it was already

two-thirds gone. "But the trouble is, most of these revolutionist types wind up getting clobbered."

"I don't know," Morris argued. "They always start off telling the people, usually the poor people, how

dedicated they are, how altruistic. Their hearts bleed for the downtrodden. But then, when they come to

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

power, they start living it up like kings, and, as often as not, the man in the street is at least as bad off as

he ever was."

"Yeah, but usually your revolutionist leaders, even the successful ones, wind up getting nailed," Jack said.

"Oh, I don't know. Stalin, Tito, Franco, Mao, Salazar, of Portugal, all died in bed at ripe old ages.

So did most of the American revolutionists, except Burr and Hamilton. Napoleon died in bed, for that

matter, although he was in exile. But take even those who were clobbered, like Mussolini. He started off

as a poor editor of a third rate, so-called socialist newspaper. He came to power as a fascist in the early

1920s and stayed in, livjng in luxury, exerting power, until 1945. Hell, he had almost a quarter of a

century living it up. When he was finally killed he was an old man. Do you think if he had his druthers,

that he would have switched lives?"

Jed yawned and said, "Well, it's a wizard of an idea, but three men can't start a revolution."

Morris Malone finished his beer. He said, argumentatively, "Why not? How many does it take to start? I

sometimes think that Voltaire started the French Revolution all by his lonesome. All right, by the time it

came along, he was dead, but he started the ball rolling."

Jed said thoughtfully, "The American Revolution really got started by only about three men; Sam Adams,

Patrick Henry, James Otis."

Jack said, "I thought it was George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, those guys."

"They came in later. Got on the bandwagon because they had to. Hell, that old bastard Franklin didn't

come in until almost the end, when the fat was already in the fire. He wanted to compromise with the

king. The patriots should have shot him."

Jack said to Morris, "You've got to have some kind of program to get the people stirred up. You just

can't come out and say we three are going to take over the country, so that we can live it up."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Morris thought about that. He said finally, "We've got to put it on a high moral level. And something

really different to wow them. Something radically opposite from what we have now."

"Yeah, Jed said, "But what, Mo?"

Morris snapped his fingers in inspiration and said, "How's this for a basic slogan: Less Production!

Lower the Gross National Product!"

The other two eyed him as though he had just left the world of reason.

"Have you gone drivel-happy?" Jack snorted. "The demand for the past century and more has been to

up the Gross National Product, the Per Capita National Income. Avoid a depression. Cut down on

unemployment."

"It's a lot.of curd," Morris said. "Unemployment isn't a problem, it's a way of life. We're using up half of

the world's raw materials and flushing about two thirds of it down the drain. Just take one item,

advertising. We'd advocate eliminating it. It doesn't produce a damn worthwhile thing."

"Every newspaper and magazine in the country would go broke," Jed protested.

"Great. Let 'em go broke. At the rate they're publishing tripe, we won't have a tree left in the country in a

few years. Let people get their news on Tri-Di or on their library booster screens from the National Data

Banks. So far as magazines are concerned, who'd miss 'em? There's only a dozen in the country worth

reading anyway and most of them not dependent upon advertising. Think of all the wood pulp and man

hours of labor you'd save if you kicked out advertising." He considered it. "Let all signs go at the same

time, especially neon signs and billboards. What the hell good are signs? They're the most garish thing in

our culture."

Jack protested mildly. "If you want to buy something, they tell you where it is."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Curd. If you're in your own neighborhood you know where the stores are with the things you want. If

you're somewhere else, you can ask the locals, or look it up in the phone book."

The other two considered it.

"Holy Jumping Zoroaster," Jed said. "It'd save a lot of paper and a lot of other material. And it'd save a

lot of power, turning all those damned signs off."

"That's just the beginning on this Produce Less program," Morris said. "We're going to end planned

obsolescence. Take cars. American hovercars are designed to start falling apart, or being out of style,

after 30,000 miles, or about three years. After that length of time, any driver who can afford it begins to

think in terms of a new car. His hovers are going, repairs needed, an engine job, there are dents and

scratches in the finish. And he looks like a bum driving a vehicle that's out of style. As far back as the

Model T and Model A Fords, a car was built to last at least ten years. A German Volkswagen, when

they first came out, was expected to last 150,000 miles and a Mercedes 300,000. And the styles didn't

change enough to make any difference. And both of them got better mileage than American cars. I won't

even mention the Jap cars. Now, what we'd do is prohibit any car that weighed more than a ton. No cars

could have more than four cylinders and all would have to give at least forty miles to the gallon. No

power steering, no power brakes, no power windows. What the hell good are they? And we wouldn't

allow batteries that were deliberately designed to wear out in a year or eighteen months. Lead is too

damned valuable. Any scientist or engineer who came up with some scheme for planned obsolescence,

we'd toss in the slammer.

"And that's just the beginning," Morris continued, in full voice now. "Take electric light bulbs. They're

manufactured now with the built-in expectation of lasting approximately one thousand hours. Hell, they've

got the knowhow to make light bulbs that would last the life of the house. It applies all the way down the

line. In our grandfathers' day a man would buy a suit, and when he died, they'd alter it a bit and his son

would take it over. How long does a suit last now? Two or three years?"

Jack said, thoughtfully, "Yeah. You could go on with a lot of examples. Take packaging. What the hell

good is most of it? My grandfather once told me that when he was a kid, soap used to sit on the shelves

of a store without even a wrapper. Now it comes wrapped in tissue paper, then in a heavier wrapper, all

fancied up, and then in a cardboard carton, along with a couple score other bars of soap. Look at all the

paper used."

Jed said, also thoughtfully, "Yeah. And all the artists, and layout men, and printers and so forth. All

turning out something of no use."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Jack said, "What'd we call this party?"

And Morris said, "The Subversive Party."

"Are you completely around the bend? The IB I would have us before the day was out."

"No, no. I told you, we'd have to wow them. Shock 'em. Something really different. There's nothing

wrong with subversion. All it means is to overthrow something in existence. To change. There's nothing in

the American Constitution against subversion. Just so you do it legally. No force and violence. You have

to get the majority of the people to vote for it. For instance, in the old days, before the Republicans and

Democrats merged, when they had an election, if the Republicans were in, then when the election came,

by definition the Democrats were trying to subvert the Republicans. But the word became kind of a

taboo. So-called socialists, like Norman Thomas, never referred to themselves as subversives, not even

the more radical Socialist Labor Party. Hell, not even the Commies or the Trotskyites. But we'll come

right out and call ourselves the Subversive Party. However, we'll advocate coming to power by

democratic procedure. We'll vote ourselves in, and once in we'll dump the present version of

democracy."

"We will?" Jed said.

"Sure, it doesn't work. Democracy is the ideal government, admittedly. But it only works among peers.

When you have a situation where any semi-literate, moron can arrive at age eighteen and have as good a

vote as an Einstein, then it's nonsense. Democracy, in America, became a farce more than a century ago.

Even presidents were elected because of their TV image, or some such. The candidate with the most

dollars to spend for TV appearances, newspaper ads and so on, made it. The voters, on average,

conducted themselves like idiots. Do you realize that even Nixon, at the nadir of his disaster, had

something like a quarter of the country pulling for him? If some of those people had caught him with his

hand in their pocket, they still would have voted for him."

Morris Malone came suddenly to his feet and began pacing up and down the room. The other two

watched him, frowning their puzzlement.

He stopped suddenly and looked at them He said, surprise in his voice, "You know, we've just been

horsing around. Just kidding. But you know I m beginning to think it might work "

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Chapter 2

Jack snorted a laugh. "No. I mean it," Morris said. Jed said, "Holy Zoroaster, Mo, you can't start a

political party without money. And we're all three on Guaranteed Annual Income."

"Yes, you can. You can start it on peanuts, if you've got a program that fits the needs of the country. Or,

at least, you can convince the people you have. Look at Lenin's gang, a few months before they came to

power. Half of them were in exile or prison in Siberia, the rest were on their uppers in Switzerland or

somewhere else abroad. Trotsky was half starving in New York cadging meals."

"Well," Jack argued, "how would we start?" "In a few days, we get our monthly GAI payments. We'll all

three tighten our belts and put fifty pseudo-dollars into the kitty, the treasury of the Subversive Party.

With it we'll buy stationary, print up membership application blanks, and rent a post office box."

"Then what?" Jed said grudgingly. "Then we start writing letters, under a dozen different pseudonyms, to

every newspaper and magazine in the country that prints a Letters to the Editor column. And we send out

press releases to every paper and Tri-Di news commentator on the air telling them about the formation of

the new party." "Hell," Jack growled. "They wouldn't give us any publicity."

"Sure they will. All of those characters grasp at straws when it comes to news. They're short of it. There

hasn't been a war for a coon's age. The space program is routine now. Most crime has disappeared with

the Universal Credit Card and all banking being taken care of by the National Data Banks' banking

section. Without money, most crime is impractical. At any rate, we'll be news. After a time, we'll

probably have chances to appear on Tri-Di programs. Guest speakers, debates, interviews, that sort of

thing. After we get going as a political party, we'll demand equal time every occasion a Democratic

Republican gives a speech."

Jack said, "That's great. But it's hardly a beginning. You've got to have pseudo-dollars on hand to print

leaflets, pamphlets, maybe bring out a newspaper, rent halls for meetings. Where do we raise money?"

"A lot of ways," Morris told him. "We'll charge five pseudo-dollars to join the Party, and five dollars

dues each month. We'll announce ourselves a legal party and demand credit exchangers from the

National Data Banks banking section so that we can transfer dues and donations into an account for the

Subversive Party. It'll be in our names. We're the National Executive Committee, the Triumvirate that

heads the Party and makes all decisions."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Jed was becoming intrigued. "How else can we raise pseudo-dollars?"

"Well, for one thing, as soon as the name and program gets out a bit, we're going to be infiltrated by the

Inter-Continental Bureau of Investigation, and probably other government organizations, including the

Center City police. They'll undoubtedly try to bribe one or more of us. They always do. Back in the

twenties there were so many F.B.I, men in the American Communist Party that a judge up in New

England threw out a case, claiming that the Communist Party was a branch of the Federal Government

and he had no jurisdiction to prosecute the government."

"But if we let government agents in, won't they be able to ferret out our secrets?" Jed scowled.

But Morris had him there. He said triumphantly, "We won't have any secrets. It will drive them around

the bend, and lead them to working still more agents in, with more bribes, and every one having to pay

his entry membership fee and his dues."

Ideas were coming to Morris by the dozen.

He said, "And we'll do what the Nazis used to do. Each membership will have a number. Ours will be,

one, two, and three; the founders of the Party. Members who have low numbers will have prestige, since

they joined up when the Party was in its infancy. After Hitler came to power, everybody in Germany

wanted a low number membership card in the National Socialist Party. And the Nazi bigwigs made a

killing selling them. That's what we'll do. We'll start the first memberships out at number one thousand.

Then, when we get larger, we'll sell the lower numbered memberships to people who are anxious to get

on the band wagon."

Jack looked at him in admiration and shook his head. "What a mind," he said.

Morris looked at him thoughtfully. "You did a hitch in the army, didn't you?"

"Yeah, worst luck."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

ScannedbyHighroller.ProofedmoreorlessbyHighroller. Chapter1 MorrisMalonewasunhappy.Hislatestattempttogetajobhadfallenflatonitsface,asalways.Hehadeducatedhimselftoteachhistory,andwhilestillinschooltheprofessionwasautomated—ultra-mated,theywerebeginningtocallitthesedays—outfromunderhim.Withthecomingof...

展开>> 收起<<

Mack Reynolds - Trample an Empire Down.pdf

共136页,预览28页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Mack Reynolds - Trample an Empire Down

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: