Futuria Fantasia, Summer 1939, Ray Bradbury [pdf ebook reader TXT] 📗

"34.46...11.E.728.../..H76302../... Z.97321.../...205...21.05." All this means that the article was a pair of low shoes, made by the leather sequence, that they were men's shoes, width E, last number 7, and style 8. Second series of numerals are the serial numbers of the machine, third is the number of certificate, the last the date and time.

At the end of the day the total lever of the machine would be pressed, and all the numbers, styles, etc. would be separated into totals (like nickels and dimes in a coin changing machine). The totals would then be teletyped to the divisional H.Q. of the leather sequence where it would be registered. This affords a continuous inventory of the whole continent. The following day, as many shoes as had been sold in the continent would be manufactured.

Many things, such as housing, transportation, medical care, recreation, education, etc. are furnished by Technocracy. One can easily see what a secure life this affords every citizen, and what a boon it is to scientific research.

I said that I wouldn't mention many things that would solve questions in the reader's minds, but if all questions are sent to the editorial offices we will contrive to open a forum.

In closing remember these few things. Technocracy is NOT a political or revolutionary movement. It is 100% American. It cannot work anywhere but on the American continent, because only here have we the necessary technological developements, the necessary trained force of technicians, and the necessary resources to institute an economy of abundance in place of an economy of scarcity. Technocracy is the only salvation when the Price System fails. It is not a political theory, but the next state of civilization. It is the best form of democracy ever conceived. It furnishes security, education, protection, and all that goes, with it to the people of the American continent. It is not in its formative state. It could be installed on a seventy-two hour call. The only reason why we don't have it now is because YOU are still duped to believing there is another way out.

Take Technocracy, or take——chaos!

DON'T GET TECHNATAL by ron reynolds

For several moments Stern had eyed his typewriter ominously, contemplating whether he should utter the unutterable. Finally:

"Damn!" he roared. "I can't write any more! Look, look at that!" He tore the sheet out of the rollers and crumpled it in his fist. "If I'd known it would be this way," he said, "I wouldn't have voted for it! Technocracy is ruining everything!"

Bella Stern, preoccupied with her knitting, glanced up in horror. "What a temper," she exclaimed. "Can't you keep your voice down?" She fussed with her work. "There now," she cried, "you made me drop a stitch!"

"I want to be a writer!" Samuel Stern lamented, turning with grim eyes to his wife. "And the Technate has spoiled my fun."

"The way you talk, Samuel," said his wife, "I actually believe you want to go back to that barbarism prevalent in the DARK THIRTIES!"

"It sounds like one damned good idea!" he said. "At least I'd have something decent, or indecent, to write about!"

"What can you mean?" she asked, tilting her head back and thinking. "Why can't you write? There are just oodles of things I can think of that are readable."

Something like a tear rolled down Samuel's cheek. "No more gangsters, no more bank robberies, no more holdups, no more good, old-fashioned burglaries, no more vice gangs!" His voice grew lachrymose as he proceeded down an infinite line of 'no mores'. "No more sadness," he almost sobbed. "Everybody's happy, contented. No more strife and hard work. Oh, for the days when a gangland massacre was headline scoop for me!"

"Tush!" sniffed Bella. "Have you been drinking again, Samuel?"

He hiccoughed gently.

"I thought so," she said.

"I had to do something," he declared. "I'm going nuts for want of a plot."

Bella Stern laid her knitting aside and walked to the balcony, looked meditatively down into the yawning canyon of the New York street fifty stories below. She turned back to Sam with a reminiscent smile.

"Why not write a love story?"

"WHAT!" Stern shot out of his chair like a hooked eel.

"Why, yes," she concluded. "A nice love story would be very enjoyable."

"LOVE!" Stern's voice was thick with sarcasm. "Why, we don't even have decent love these days. A man can't marry a woman for her money, and vice-versa. Everyone under Technocracy gets the same amount of credit. No more Reno, no more alimony, no more breach of promise, or law suits! Everything is cut and dried. The days of society weddings and coming out parties are gone—cause everyone is equal. I can't write political criticisms about graft in the government, about slums and terrible living conditions, about poor starving mothers and their babies. Everything is okay—okay—okay—" his voice sobbed off into silence.

"Which should make you very happy," countered his wife.

"Which makes me very sick," growled Samuel Stern. "Look, Bell, all my life I wanted to be a writer. Okay. I'm writing for the pulp magazines for a coupla years. Right? Okay. Then I'm writing sea stories, gangsters, political views, first class-bump-offs. I'm happy.... I'm in my element. Then—bingo!—in comes Technocracy, makes everyone happy—bump! out goes me! I just can't stand writing the stuff the people read today. Everything is science and education." He ruffled his thick black hair with his fingers and glared.

"You should be joyful that the population is at work doing what they want to do," Bella beamed.

Sam continued muttering to himself. "They took all the sex magazines off the market first thing, all of the gangster, murder and detective publications. They been educating the children and making model citizens out of them."

"Which is as it should be," finished Bella.

"Do you realize," he blazed, whipping his finger at her, "that for two years there hasn't been more than a dozen murders in the city? Not one suicide or gang war—or—"

"Heavens!" sighed Bella. "Don't be prehistoric, Sam. There hasn't been anything really criminal for twenty years now. This is 1975 you know." She came over and patted him gently on the shoulder. "Why don't you write something science-fictional?"

"I don't like science," he spat.

"Then your only alternative is love," she declared firmly.

He formed the despicable word with his lips, then: "No, I want something new and different." He got up and strode to the window. In the penthouse below he saw half a dozen robots moving about speedily, working. His face lit up suddenly, like that of a tiger spying his prey. "Jumping Jigwheels!" he cried. "Why didn't I think of it before! Robots! I'll write a love story about two robots."

Bella squelched him. "Be sensible," she said.

"It might happen some day," he argued. "Just think. Love oiled, welded, built of metal, wired for sound!" He laughed triumphantly, but it was a low laugh, a strange little sound. Bella expected him to beat his chest next. "Robots fall in love at first sight," he announced, "and blow an audio tube!"

Bella smiled tolerantly. "You're such a child, Sam. I sometimes wonder why I married you."

Stern sank down, burning slowly, a crimson flush rising in his face. Only half a dozen murders in two years, he thought. No more politics, no more to write about. He had to have a story, just had to have one. He'd go crazy if something didn't happen soon. His brain was clicking furiously. A calliope of thought was tooting in his subconscious. He had to have a story. He turned and looked at his wife, Bella, who stood watching the air traffic go by the window, bending over the sill, looking down into the street fifty floors below....

... and then he reached slowly and quietly for his atomic gun.

AN EXPLANATION: You may have wondered why I placed the Technocrat story and article in FuFa. Well, it's because I think Technocracy combines all of the hopes and dreams of science-fiction. We've been dreaming about it for years—now, in a short time it may become reality. It surely deserves support from any serious fictioneer. And you can't say this mag isn't balanced!—first I give you Yorke's article on Tech., then I give you a satire on the same thing, jabbing at it in a good-humoured way, and then—when you read Ackerman's article, you'll see almost the complete annihilation of EARTH. So, whether you are an optimist or a pessimist about the future of humanity, you'll find either side in FuFa. (But on the side, I'm all for the Technate, aegh!)

Ye Editor....

This being the first issue of FuFa I feel fortunate in being able to offer a piece of scientifiction by the field's most famous fan.

THE RECORD was written first in 1929, scarcely more than a sketch, on two pages. Ackerman was thirteen. ED EARL REPP, LA author of THE RADIUM POOL, said of it: "I found it delighting and exceptionally interesting for the writing of a boy so young." Ackerman re-wrote it into a three page story, later, the present product. It has not been touched since. It is not being retouched now. Allow me to present THE RECORD as a record of how Forrie wrote, spelled and punctuated six years ago at the age of sixteen. ED.

THE RECORD by FORREST J. ACKERMAN

For twenty years—for twenty long, horror filled, war laden years the Earth had not known peace.

Hovering over the metropolises of the world came long, lean battle projectiles, glinting silver in the sunlight or coming like gaunt mirages of grey out of the midnight sky to blast man's civilization from its cultural foundations. Man against man, ship against ship—a ceaseless and useless orgy of slaughter. Men, at their battle stations in the ships, pressed buttons, releasing radio bombs that blistered space and lifted whole cities up in shattered pieces and flung them down, grim ruins, reminders of man's ignorant hatreds and suspicions.

And gas—thick black clouds of it—billowing over the cities, seeking every possible egress, pushed forward by colossal Wind machines. But even when Victory came for the one side, often Nature, in one of her vengeful moments, would send the black gas flowing back to annihilate its senders.

Rays cut the air! Power bombs exploded incessantly! Evaporays robbed the Earth of its water—shot it up into the atmosphere and made of it a fog that condensed only after many months. And heat rays made deserts out of fertile terrain.

Rays that hypnotized caused even the strong minded to commit suicide or reveal military secrets. Rays that effected the optical nerves swept cities and left the population groping and blind, unable to find food.

It was a war that destroyed almost all of humanity. And why were they fighting? For pleasure and amusement!

In the middle of the twenty-second century, every nation had a standard defense. The weapons of war of each were equal—not in proportion to size, but actually, since man-power no longer counted high. Pacifism had done its best, but the World was armed to the hilt. And now—though illogically—it felt safe—for every nation meant the same as if all had nothing.

Another thing—there was no work to be done. Robots did it. And there seemed nothing left to discover, invent or enjoy. Art was at its perfection, poetry was mathematically correct and unutterably beautiful—worked out by the Esthetic machines. Sculptoring had been given the effect complete, artists hands guided by wonderful pieces of machinery. Huge museums were crammed with art put out synthetically.

And thus it was with the many Arts and their creators who grew stagnent in their perfection. And it was that way with the many sciences also....

Paleontologists had found, and articulated, and catalogued every fossil. The ancestor of the Eohippus, the little four-toed Dawn Horse, was discovered; the direct line between man and ape established in skeletal remains; the seat of life itself definitely proved Holarctica. And great bio-chemists, skilled in the science of vital processes, had created synthetic tissues and muscles and flesh, built upon the frames that had been recovered bodies with skillful modeling ... even supplied them with blood and given them the spark of LIFE ... so that Paleobotonists recreated the flora of a prehistoric era. Again the ponderous amphibious brontosaur pushed through marshes. Fish emerged upon the land, and the first bird archaeopteryx tried his imperfect wings for flight. In the regulated climates of long dead ages, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals lived again for the edification of those interested in the very ancient—or who were amused with queer animals.

But that was only paleontologically speaking. There were the heavens to be considered. They had been: the stars and planets weighed and measured, their composition noted, courses plotted with super-accuracy. Every feature had been mapped—every climactic condition recorded. Life had been named and numbered ... then photographed. And these were but first considerations. Actually, what wasn't known about the Solar System had not occurred as yet. But that would probably be remedied by a machine to view the future.

There was physics, biology, anthropology, zoology, geology, bacteriology, botany—and 'ologies'