Nova 2 Read online

  Twenty years old, the memory was. Black veils, black clothes, so starkly contrasted with the white marble of the face. Ransom’s father’s face, waxy and dead. It had rained that morning and the burying ground was still spongy with moisture. That was when graves could still be dug. Before the premium on vacant land resurrected every inhabitant of the cemetery and sent his remains to the crematorium. Even now the dust of Ransom’s father’s remains was probably in the process of precipitating out of the air sighing into Ransom’s living room.

  The poet sniffed, and sniffed again

  at the corpse-smell of my own funeral.

  He picked up the bomb from the coffee table. Childishly amazed at how much leashed destruction could be held in the palm of his hand, Ransom again grinned.

  The two watchers, offstage. Consumer Participation Evaluators, they were officially termed. Amelia Marchin, for her own peculiar reasons, called them “neilsons.” This was reputed to be some sort of in-joke, but then Amelia possessed a marvelously esoteric knowledge of her field.

  The two CPE’s watched the stick-figure bumbling through illusion after illusion.

  “This is definitely too melodramatic,” said the taller one, making a cryptic notation subvocally on his recorder.

  “I disagree,” said the second CPE, the shorter of the pair. “On the contrary, I feel that this performance is the highest form of art. There is a great deal to be said on behalf of spontaneity.”

  “So where does the spontaneity leave off?” asked the first CPE. “And where does the external manipulation of the director begin?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea. The line of distinction is marvelously subtle.” He poured himself a glass of amber liquid. “Have a drink?” he invited.

  The first CPE proffered his glass. The two watchers settled back comfortably to watch the show.

  DISSOLVE TO:

  STILL SHOT OF

  The poet bleeding.

  “Iron and sapphire caverns of frost

  Coat the chrome cylinders of mind”

  The two lines lie inert on the white paper desert for more than an hour while Ransom grapples with the poem. The night is unending repetition of coffee hot and cold, recorded music and silence, turning the thermostat up and down, remembering and staring at vistas far beyond the walls of the room, sitting quiet, stalking, pacing, tensing and relaxing. On the wall, the clock’s hands lag heavily.

  “Below, the volcano slumbers Unseen, yet sensed with bleak desire”

  Ransom never works harder than when he forges his songs-And

  there is nothing he loves more. Not Melissa, not food, drink, nor any other pleasure. For they are all here in his poetry.

  “Dim awareness vaguely suspects

  Vanished dreams; the promise of fire.”

  Dawn is graying the black scan of Ransom’s eastern electronic window. The poet yawns and stretches, feeling the cramp of his muscles relax painfully. He looks down at the manuscript, at the words inked out and changed, some a dozen times or more. He sees the dull gleam of flecked silver peeking out of the slag.

  Ransom, satisfied for the moment, fixes a simple breakfast.

  DIRECT CUT TO:

  STILL SHOT OF

  The poet loving. Ransom leans on one elbow on the softness of the bed. Below him, Melissa is faceless in shadow.

  Sensing his mood, she asks, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, Love,” lies Ransom. What’s wrong is the poet’s life; he is dissatisfied with himself, with his actions. And no one is to blame except himself. The realization is unpleasant; it intrudes into the ecstasy of the moment

  I wish that somehow I

  could come

  to you

  now

  and ease this bitter moment

  finding solace

  between your thighs

  Ransom hates the intrusion of the world into this moment; he forces it back into a mental recess. Melissa is warmly damply ready. He touches her. They joy in the pleasure of just about the last human endeavor not yet supplanted by machines.

  DIRECT CUT TO:

  STILL SHOT OF

  The poet standing high above the world. Years before.

  The late afternoon light slants across the mountainside. From his rock promontory jutting high out of the scrub pine, the poet silently watches the forest below. The trees thin out as they advance up the slopes to the clusters of broken boulders thrusting at the sky. Far below him, a road coils among trees and rocks. A campfire lifts a thin smoke-trail into the crisp November air. The winding trail is nudged Ransom’s way by the wind and he can smell the slightly acrid tang of wood-smoke. A mottling of clouds scuds southward; their ever-shifting shadows crisscross the valley floor.

  Ransom, young and alone, stands on his rock. This is his first trip here. The first of many to these mountains west of Denver. Snatches of Gerard Hopkins’ “The Windhover” leap from his memory as the ragged north wind crowds him.

  Ransom feels a sensation of aliveness here—more so than in the Ellay hive. I’ll write about this someday, he thinks, before these mountains are gutted for their metals or leveled for freeways. I can’t stop their rape, but maybe I can evoke their memory.

  Someday he will.

  DIRECT CUT TO:

  STILL SHOT OF

  The poet whoring.

  KATYA

  The last time was too much. I can’t go on with it.

  MARSHALL

  You have to; if only for the child.

  In a fit of disgust, Ransom sweeps his hand across the desk and the half-finished script scatters to the carpet like dead leaves. The title page lands face up: “Darkness Comes Cheap: an original play for holovision.” The poet punches out the combination for three ounces of Scotch, no chaser, on his kitchen console. The glass automatically fills as Ransom retrieves the strewn fruit of his career. He straightens up with a fistful of paper and dumps it back on the desk.

  The Scotch is drained in an extended gulp. Then Ransom is back to his work, his staff of life.

  To Ransom, the sheets on the desk are rubbish. His love lies on the shelf across the room. A slim volume in a subdued jacket, a book of poems called Blue Mountains Above Denver. Beside it in a folder are the beginnings of another book. They have long lain unfinished. They will remain so.

  DIRECT CUT TO:

  STILL SHOT OF

  The poet celebrating.

  The bar is old, cheap, dirty. It squats in the tawdry business belt that half-encircles the starport. Ransom often rides the tube here—sometimes to watch the giant silver ships lift away to the space-sea, but mostly to drink and talk with his friends in the bar.

  “Sometimes I live in the country,

  Sometimes I live in the town;

  Sometimes I have a great notion

  To go to the river and drown”

  English folk songs; Welsh, German, French, American, Russian. Tobacco smoke and cannabis fumes cloy the air. Liquor is plentiful. With an arm around the thin shoulders of his friend Morales and the container of inexpensive vodka gripped in a free hand, Ransom roars out verses, sometimes getting the lyrics right, sometimes not.

  The song muddles to a crashing finale with an enthusiastic “And rest in the arms of love.”

  The glow of the song is transient and Ransom frowns. Morales seeing the expression asks, “My friend, you are unhappy?”

  “Ever get the feeling you sold out?”

  Morales shrugs. “Selling out is merely good business.”

  “It’s also self-betrayal,” says Ransom. He takes a long, thoughtful draught of vodka. “So much for beating the system on its own terms. I fooled myself.”

  “Hey!” shouts Morales to the bouzuki player in the corner. “We wish another song.”

  COMPUTER LINK:

  MEDIUM SHOT—OFFICE INTERIOR

  AIR DISPERSAL JUNGLE WIDE-SPECTRUM BUT SUBDUED

  AUDIO EFFECTS: LIMITED RANGE SUBSONICS (TENSION BUILDING)

  EFFECTS: H-FIGURES NORMAL SCALE


  Amelia Marchin. Director General of UniCom, the most powerful woman in the North American communications industry. One of the most powerful women anywhere. Sleekly beautiful as a panther: hair black and eyes green, lithe, intelligent, ruthless, graceful. Also feral. And today, displeased.

  “I’m resigning,” the object of her displeasure had told her. “Quitting. Getting out. Now.”

  “No,” said Amelia Marchin. “At one time I would have allowed you to leave UniCom. I would have been regretful, but I would have accepted your resignation. After all, you’re one of the top holovision writers in the field. But now, Fm afraid that your termination of any contract with us is out of the question.”

  Ransom rose to his feet. His face reddened to match the shag of his beard. He bent and slammed a fist down on Amelia’s desk. “Like hell it’s out of the question! If I want to leave, I’ll go. There are still laws against slavery.”

  Amelia watched him, amused. “Yes. There are, unfortunately.” She smiled placatingly. “Now sit down, Ransom. It won’t do any good for you to try to intimidate me with bluster.”

  It wouldn’t. Ransom knew that from prior experience. He sat. “You know,” said Amelia, “you’re a real anomaly. You write and adapt some of UniCom’s highest rated shows, yet you don’t own a holovision set yourself.”

  “Holovision stinks,” said Ransom. “I write your scripts so I can buy enough food to live on while I write poetry. That’s all. I’ve saved up enough credits so I can live for a while and write. So no more scripts.”

  “We need you,” said Amelia quietly.

  Ransom was startled. Statements like that from the Director General were not forthcoming every day. He looked at her inquisitively.

  “You have immense talent. You are a genius and an articulate one. That’s a remarkable combination in any age, but particularly in this century of ours.”

  “Thanks for the compliment,” said Ransom. “But you’re hedging. Why don’t you want me to resign?”

  She showed her white even teeth in a smile. “UniCom has developed a radical innovation in holovision programming; we need your talent and ability to help make it viable.”

  Ransom laughed, shockingly loud in the cool, subdued interior of the office. “Give aid and comfort to the enemy? Hell no!”

  Amelia arched an eyebrow, inclined her head slightly, and again smiled.

  DISSOLVE TO:

  COMMERCIAL BREAK

  WIDE-ANGLE SHOT—TYPICAL UNICOM APPLIANCE STORE EXTERIOR. CAMERA PANS TO CATCH WELL-DRESSED COUPLE APPROACHING ON SLIDEWALK.

  “Come right on in, folks!” The salesman’s voice boomed, a distillation of friendliness and cheery enthusiasm. His face was the standard family sales issue: a composite of every man’s favorite uncle. The happy salesman waved the couple, who smiled in return, into the store. “Welcome to UniCom’s great Twenty-Twenty Sale!”

  “Twenty-Twenty Sale?” inquired the woman alertly, her eyes clear and widely blue and abrim with curiosity.

  “Right!” said the salesman. “It’s the first week of the new year and already we’ve declared a special sale with tremendous savings for you shoppers at all UniCom outlets in North America.”

  “Savings?” asked the husband. “That really sounds great!”

  “Great is right! But just wait until you see what’s even greater—UniCom’s new line of holovision sets for 2020!”

  “Oh dear,” said the wife. “We already have a holovision set.” There was regret in her voice at having to disappoint the salesman who looked so much like her favorite uncle.

  “Not like this one, you don’t!” The salesman pivoted and dramatically indicated a shining black box on a crystal dais. “Friends, you undoubtedly have an old-style holovision—the kind that only gives you three-dimensional pictures and stereo sound.”

  “Of course,” said the husband, puzzled. “It’s the best set on the market.”

  “Not any more! Not now that UniCom has added a whole new dimension to holograms!”

  The prospective customers appeared properly astonished and intrigued. “A new dimension?” they asked in concert.

  “Brand new! It’s now possible for you—” he pointed to the woman. “And you—” he gestured at the man. “To actually participate, to star in your own favorite holovision shows, right in the comfort and convenience of your own home.”

  The couple looked struck by wonder.

  “Imagine—” said the woman.

  CAMERA PULLS BACK—PANS TO SALESMAN. CLOSE SHOT—HIS FACE

  “That’s right, friends! Imagine yourself the star of your own show in your own home! All you need is the fantastic new Twenty-Twenty holovision plan, available only from UniCom. For complete details and a free demonstration, visit your local UniCom Appliance Mart today!

  COMPUTER LINK:

  SAME AS PREVIOUS SCENE—AMELIA’S OFFICE

  DISSOLVE TO:

  A capering of miniscule actors. The troupe strutted and fretted across the top of Amelia’s desk. The drama was without sound, yet Ransom could whisper the lines to accompany the action. He had written them.

  “Consider the popular communication media created by electronics,” said Amelia.

  Ransom continued to watch the Lilliputian production of “Darkness Comes Cheap.”

  “First there was radio during the first half of the last century. For all practical purposes, it was a one-dimensional medium—sound. It was largely replaced by two-dimensional television. Then in the seventies and eighties came the three-dimensional moving images of holovision.” Her voice had the self-assured inflection of a high priestess reading aloud from the holy book. “Now UniCom is ready to advance the progression further.”

  Amelia touched a small panel of controls beside her chair and the hologram on the desk expanded to normal human scale and beyond to fill the entire room.

  A heroically proportioned couple were silently making love close by Ransom’s shoulder. He idly reached out to the holographic girl’s hip, his hand disappearing into the intangible flesh.

  “Just wonderful,” said the poet. “Another step in the progression. What now? Are you going to plug the program right into the viewer’s brain?”

  “Not yet, Ransom. Maybe next season.” Amelia moved a control and the hologram’s soundtrack cut in. Over the heavy breathing, she asked, “What’s the missing element?”

  Ransom shrugged.

  “Participation,” said Amelia.

  Ransom looked apprehensive, shoved back his chair. “I’m getting a premonition. I don’t think I want to hear about this.”

  “On the contrary. You do want to hear. You’ve got an incredible curiosity—otherwise you wouldn’t be so perceptive in your poetry and, occasionally, your scripts.” She moved a hand and the H-figures winked out. The woman reached into an aperture in her desk and lifted out a black box. Featureless, it was about twenty centimeters long, Ransom guessed. Perhaps half that wide and deep.

  “Participation,” Amelia repeated. “It’s all right here. This is a direct link between any holovision set and UniCOMP.” The entire ten levels beneath Amelia’s office was UniCOMP.

  “How about that!” said Ransom. “You know how impressive I find your tin macrocephalus.”

  “Wait, Ransom. You’ll be impressed; I promise you that. Listen, now. Imagine yourself home with your ‘Darkness Comes Cheap’ scheduled on the holovision.”

  Ransom nodded.

  “How would you like to play your protagonist, Marshall? How would you like to actually perform the lead role in your drama-more than that, even to be Marshall?”

  The poet raised his eyebrows politely.

  “You can do it, Ransom!” Excitement welled in Amelia’s voice. “This box will do it. UniCOMP directs the whole production. Your lines are cued subliminally. Your subscription to UniCom covers simple props, special effects, even hallucinogenic aids to ensure your responsiveness to UniCOMP’s stimuli.”

  Ransom stared unbelievingly at her.

&n
bsp; “Listen, Ransom. You don’t even have to follow the script. Feedback circuits let your own initiatives and reactions determine the direction of the action. This is the ultimate in participatory entertainment; it lets everyone’s imagination loose, frees everybody’s natural talents.”

  “You’re crazy!” said the poet, unmasked horror contorting his face. “You’re absolutely mad!”

  Amelia registered surprise. “What’s the matter? You’re a poet and a writer—probably the closest we can come to a Renaissance man. Don’t tell me you’re shocked at the unveiling of a new artform?”

  “This isn’t art,” said Ransom, his face again reddening, and his voice thick. “It’s completely the opposite.” His features worked painfully as he sought the right words. “It’s perversion. It’s destroying art by bringing it down to the ultimate common denominator.”

  “I didn’t realize you were a snob.”

  “I’m not. It’s just that—” Ransom shook his head violently, his eyes screwed shut. “It’s just that we’ve leveled art, so thoroughly vulgarized it through television and holovision. Even before electronics, we did the job with incompetent abridgements and even comic-book versions of great works.” He leaned forward, looked at Amelia’s impassive panther eyes. “This method of yours will cut the underpinnings from every poet and playwright and author from the early Greeks down to right now. Amelia, can’t you see what literature will be like when every person in the world can stamp Shakespeare and Dostoievsky and Joyce to the mold of his own subjective tastes?”

  Amelia shrugged. “North America is still a democracy,” she said. Ransom’s voice broke hoarsely: “What’s worse, this thing you’re proposing is all the manipulation of a machine—a sterile, cold, unfeeling machine.” His face twisted again. “God help us all if people accept this.”