Read Online Songs From the Stars by Norman Spinrad - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Norman Spinrad
Tags: Science-Fiction, post apocalypse
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for you? You want to make the same mistakes all over again and kill what's left of the world? And you expect me to help you? Just how black do you think I really am?"
And these are the sorcerers whose aid I've pretended didn't exist? she thought, not like the answer she found bubbling up from the pits to her last question.
"Black enough, Sunshine Sue," Harker said. He sat back down behind the desk and spoke at her through steepled fingers. "You may lack the vision to share the dream of a New Age of Space, but you won't be; able to resist the spinoff."
He leered at her with infuriating smugness. "Those are broadcast satellites up there in orbit," he said. "A radio network that can cover the world, in place and legally powered by the sun, if your scruples are really so punctilious. That's your payoff for following the scenario nominally. For that, wouldn't you be willing to overlook a little of what you choose to call black science? Might not you be willing to taint your soul a bit to fulfill your dream?"
"You're... you're serious...?" Sue stammered. "These broadcast satellites really are up there...?" McLuhan had mentioned such satellite broadcast systems; they really had existed. She studied the sorcerer more closely. An evil maniac? Or a man following his own great dream, black though it might be? And if I told anyone my secret dream, wouldn't they call me a sorcerer? "Solar powered...?" she said slowly. "They don't poison the Earth or use atomic power...?"
Harker grinned fatuously. "White as the driven snow."
Sue sighed. She looked across the desk at him with hard bargaining eyes. "All right," she said coldly. "Let's hear your price."
He had told her a wonderful thing which had changed her mind.
"When our spaceship reaches the station, we'll reactivate the satellite system and give you a ground station that can command it. By relaying your broadcasts through the satellites, you'll be able to reach every operating radio in the world. And all we ask in return is that you help us get the spaceship launched."
"This ground station you're going to give me, it's atomic powered, isn't it?" Sue guessed. "And this spaceship of yours, I'll bet it's not exactly ultrabright either, right? And you're going to reactivate something actually built by pre-Smash sorcerers... This isn't just gray, it really is black science!"
"It's science," Harker said, shrugging. "These distinctions of white and black are superstitious drivel. Surely you're intelligent enough to realize that by now."
A spiritual vertigo came over Sue. Everything she knew of her world told her that she was contemplating a pact with evil. But she didn't feel evil. To her, Harker was evil, but she was convinced he wasn't evil to himself. The world would call her evil if they knew what she planned, just as they would react in a murderous frenzy, a holy war, to the launching of a spaceship by sorcerers. So how to judge black and white, good and evil? How can I consider myself one and this sorcerer the other? And how can either of us hope to realize our wicked dreams?
"Science or sorcery, it won't work," she said, surprising herself by the tone of disappointment in her voice. "Launch a spaceship, and there'll be a holy war, a jihad, a pogrom. You've survived so far because people fear your power more than anything you've yet done. But if you go this far, they'll fear what you've already done more than what you still might do, and a horde of the whitely righteous will swarm over these mountains and..."
She grimaced, realizing the ironic truth as it passed her lips. "And in that atmosphere, I wouldn't be able to use the broadcast system I sold my soul for anyway..."
But Harker just nodded as if all this had been anticipated in that scenario of his. And from what she had seen so far, she wouldn't bet against it. "That's why we need Clear Blue Lou," he said. "If Clear Blue Lou judges our cause just publicly, Aquaria will listen."
"Clear Blue Lou is going to tell Aquaria
And these are the sorcerers whose aid I've pretended didn't exist? she thought, not like the answer she found bubbling up from the pits to her last question.
"Black enough, Sunshine Sue," Harker said. He sat back down behind the desk and spoke at her through steepled fingers. "You may lack the vision to share the dream of a New Age of Space, but you won't be; able to resist the spinoff."
He leered at her with infuriating smugness. "Those are broadcast satellites up there in orbit," he said. "A radio network that can cover the world, in place and legally powered by the sun, if your scruples are really so punctilious. That's your payoff for following the scenario nominally. For that, wouldn't you be willing to overlook a little of what you choose to call black science? Might not you be willing to taint your soul a bit to fulfill your dream?"
"You're... you're serious...?" Sue stammered. "These broadcast satellites really are up there...?" McLuhan had mentioned such satellite broadcast systems; they really had existed. She studied the sorcerer more closely. An evil maniac? Or a man following his own great dream, black though it might be? And if I told anyone my secret dream, wouldn't they call me a sorcerer? "Solar powered...?" she said slowly. "They don't poison the Earth or use atomic power...?"
Harker grinned fatuously. "White as the driven snow."
Sue sighed. She looked across the desk at him with hard bargaining eyes. "All right," she said coldly. "Let's hear your price."
He had told her a wonderful thing which had changed her mind.
"When our spaceship reaches the station, we'll reactivate the satellite system and give you a ground station that can command it. By relaying your broadcasts through the satellites, you'll be able to reach every operating radio in the world. And all we ask in return is that you help us get the spaceship launched."
"This ground station you're going to give me, it's atomic powered, isn't it?" Sue guessed. "And this spaceship of yours, I'll bet it's not exactly ultrabright either, right? And you're going to reactivate something actually built by pre-Smash sorcerers... This isn't just gray, it really is black science!"
"It's science," Harker said, shrugging. "These distinctions of white and black are superstitious drivel. Surely you're intelligent enough to realize that by now."
A spiritual vertigo came over Sue. Everything she knew of her world told her that she was contemplating a pact with evil. But she didn't feel evil. To her, Harker was evil, but she was convinced he wasn't evil to himself. The world would call her evil if they knew what she planned, just as they would react in a murderous frenzy, a holy war, to the launching of a spaceship by sorcerers. So how to judge black and white, good and evil? How can I consider myself one and this sorcerer the other? And how can either of us hope to realize our wicked dreams?
"Science or sorcery, it won't work," she said, surprising herself by the tone of disappointment in her voice. "Launch a spaceship, and there'll be a holy war, a jihad, a pogrom. You've survived so far because people fear your power more than anything you've yet done. But if you go this far, they'll fear what you've already done more than what you still might do, and a horde of the whitely righteous will swarm over these mountains and..."
She grimaced, realizing the ironic truth as it passed her lips. "And in that atmosphere, I wouldn't be able to use the broadcast system I sold my soul for anyway..."
But Harker just nodded as if all this had been anticipated in that scenario of his. And from what she had seen so far, she wouldn't bet against it. "That's why we need Clear Blue Lou," he said. "If Clear Blue Lou judges our cause just publicly, Aquaria will listen."
"Clear Blue Lou is going to tell Aquaria
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